Teachers want DepEd to clarify mandatory reporting to schools

A group of teachers and education workers urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to clarify about reports requiring teachers to report to schools.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines wrote to Education Secretary Leonor Briones to seek clarification on numerous reports from different regions requiring 100 percent of teachers to report to schools eight hours daily.

ACT said that it has been receiving “numerous complaints” from the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Regions III, IV-A, Region VI, VII (Cebu province), and Region VIII that 100 percent of public school teachers are “now required to physically report to schools every day.”

The group said that this arrangement is “unjust, unsafe, impractical, and counter-productive” because “teachers have no students to teach in schools as more than 90 percent of our public schools remain closed and are still employing full remote learning modalities.”

The group also mentioned that the internet infrastructure of schools cannot help the internet connectivity requirements of all teachers.

“Thus teachers are forced to render overtime work as they have to perform their online duties when they return home after reporting to school,” ACT said.

ACT said that school facilities were “not sufficiently prepared” to receive 100 percent of the teacher.

“As such, we request for the Department to release a work arrangement policy for teachers that better suits the actual situation of each school and lets them perform their duties more effectively,” ACT said.