The Department of Education (DepEd) has given assurance it would act on complaints raised by teachers against ‘work overload.’
Tonisito M.C. Umali, DepEd Undersecretary for Legislative Liaison Office, External Partnerships Service and School Sports said on Wednesday that the matter has already been addressed to Education Secretary Leonor Briones.
On September, DepEd has reduced 36 reduced 36 common school forms to 10 official school forms, which already include forms for Senior High School, and has streamlined processes – minimizing duplication and redundancy of data, and diminishing time and effort spent by teachers on work preparations.
Although, the agency clarified that the action is not to eliminate reporting entirely but to ensure that the data collected are not compromised and are integral to proper assessment, planning, and allocation of resources and intervention.
“Secretary Briones already identified these forms that the teachers needed to comply,” Umali said.
He added, “As of now, we are still studying what forms must be needed to be reduced, because we understood that it takes time to fill up these forms.”
The undersecretary also suggested on hiring non-teaching personnel who will take charge of these non-teaching functions being exercised by the teachers.
Groups such as Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines and Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) have been calling the attention of DepEd on the “heavy workload” of public school teachers which, according to them, greatly takes toll on the “physical and mental” health of the educators.
Both groups also cited cases of teachers who killed themselves allegedly due to the “exhaustion” just to comply with the “demands” of DepEd.
Recent cases of teacher’s committing suicide due to work overload had been reported by DepEd all throughout.
Fe Concepcion, a teacher of Pindasan Elementary School in Compostela Valley, committed suicide inside the classroom’s comfort room on November 7.
Although DepEd ruled the suicide was due to personal matters.
