Is hiring more non-teaching personnel the answer to teacher’s agonizing pile of work?

Is hiring more non-teaching personnel in DepEd the answer to teacher’s never-ending work? To be more exact, teachers are bound to teach students. It means their sole responsibility is only the following:

• plan the lessons (lesson planning)
• prepare the materials needed for the delivery of the lesson
• deliver the lesson to the students
• perform assessments and skill tests
• check progress of the students
• record students progress and scores
• compute the grades of the students
• follow up the performance of the students
• prepare the forms and documents of the advisory class
• attend various seminars related to teaching
  

All the above-mentioned responsibilities are for the teacher alone. Now, it is sad to note that aside from those there many pile of work added to our daily routine as teachers. This includes other unrelated functions that are not included in the scope of a teacher. Some of these are:

• SBM
• MEA, SMEA 
• other school reports
• BAC and other functions in the procurement
• other documents related functions, etc.

I can’t mention all those pile of works that they are giving the teachers when in fact it is not their job to do it. There are many of them to mention. Not all public schools got to have their own bookkeeper, disbursing officer ADAS and etc.

Non-teaching personnel are most likely present in the big public schools. Big public schools have their own non-teaching personnel but it doesn’t change anything. It seemed that these non-teaching personnel don’t know their duties and responsibilities.

For me, no matter how many non-teaching personnel the government will hire. If these non-teaching personnel don’t know their functions then they won’t be of any help.

An example of this is our school. We have a principal, a school secretary, a bookkeeper, a disbursing officer and two ADAS. Imagine how complete they are? Yet, we teachers are still stressed about the extra work we have. In the previous SBM that we had, I once was the coordinator when I don’t have any knowledge about finances. I kept telling my principal but he did nothing. See how it worked? 

If the government will hire more non-teaching personnel be it. Yet, DepEd should make sure to explain to them the scope of their duties and responsibilities. If not, there will still be no changes in the system at all. These non-teaching personnel should not waste their time scrolling their social media accounts. They should make sure they lessen the burden of the teachers by doing their jobs well. 

The bottom-line:

Hiring more non-teaching personnel can help teachers very well if: 

• they know their duties and responsibilities
• they understand the scope of their duties and responsibilities
• they will report to their assigned school everyday as teachers are
• they have the common sense to do the work that is due to them and not the concern of teachers

Proper orientation and training is a must for these non-teaching personnel. It also includes professional training so they act according to what is necessary. – Avril | Helpline PH