A SENATOR said the government should find long-term solutions to the problem of work overload among teachers to help address the education crisis in the country.
“One of the steps to take care of the quality of education that our young people receive is to make sure that our teachers have enough time to teach,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Basic Education Committee, said in Filipino in a statement on Tuesday.
“But we cannot do this if teachers remain burdened with other tasks that have nothing to do with actual teaching,” he added.
Even before the disruptions brought by the coronavirus pandemic, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) already pointed out in a 2019 study that the quality and delivery of education is affected by administrative and student support roles handled by teachers.
Teachers are also required to participate in government programs such as mass immunization, deworming, and election.
Mr. Gatchalian urged the Education department to adopt a proposal from the state think tank to conduct studies on teacher workload, as it will help rationalize their job and allow them to allocate more time for teaching.
The senator also filed the Digital Transformation in Basic Education Act to promote efficiency in delivering basic education services.
Senate Bill 383, if passed, will help streamline teachers’ workflow through the use of technology.
Mr. Gatchalian is also pushing for amendments to the 56-year-old Magna Carta for Public School Teachers to improve provisions on benefits as well as make it more responsive to present challenges. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan