Digitalization and hiring non-teaching personnel to give teachers more time for teaching

Digitalization and the hiring of non-teaching personnel should be considered as Department of Education long-term solutions to ease teachers workload.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that based on the proposal of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, digitalization will help rationalize teachers’ jobs and allow them to  focus on teaching.

“The quality and delivery of education is affected by the administrative work of the teachers and student support roles, and the participation in government sponsored programs such as in elections, deworming, and immunizations,” he said.

The DepEd workload balancing tool will determine how teachers divide their time between teaching and performing administrative works.

The agency also announced that teachers would no longer check on students’ compliance with the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program requirements.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva expressed concerns on the long overdue status of the computer-based licensure examinations (CBLE) project of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), 22 years since RA 8981 or the PRC Modernization Act was enacted.

It was revealed during a recent Senate budget hearing that no funding was allocated for setting up CBLEs in PRC regional offices for next year.

RA 8981 mandates the PRC to implement “the full computerization of all licensure examinations by the various professional regulatory boards”

“Let’s not wait 20 more years. We needed a fully functional CBLE years ago. We are eager to hear from the PRC its modernization plans for transitioning to a digitalized system of conducting licensure exams,” Villanueva said in a statement.