MANILA, Philippines – Recognizing the crucial role of teachers in country’s battle against learning crisis, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte promised more benefits for them to ensure effective delivery of education to millions of Filipino students.

At her second basic education report on Thursday, January 25, Duterte said that the Department of Education (DepEd) will release on Friday, January 26, an order containing guidelines on the removal of administrative tasks from teachers so they could focus on teaching.

“To ensure its effective implementation, along with the filling up of 5,000 administrative personnel for 2023 and another 5,000 administrative personnel for 2024, we will also be providing additional MOOE (maintenance and other operating expenses) to enable our schools to hire the necessary administrative support staff,” Duterte said.

It can be recalled that Duterte already mentioned the removal of administrative tasks from teachers’ workload in her last report in 2023. DepEd spokesman Michael Poa said that it took DepEd a year to issue such policy because they needed time to study its implementation.

For years, teachers have complained that paperwork piling up hinders them from preparing lessons.

Overtime, overload pay

The Vice President also said that the DepEd would provide overtime pay for teachers.

“Historically, for non-teaching tasks performed outside their regular working hours, teachers are only compensated through service credits. In the next budget cycle, DepEd will be proposing a budget that will enable us to grant overtime pay to our teachers,” she said.

Besides overtime pay, Duterte also said that the department would issue a policy on overload pay.

“We want to ensure that our teachers are rightfully compensated for hours of actual classroom teaching beyond the 6-hour limit provided under the Magna Carta for teachers,” the Vice President said.

Education experts cited overworked teachers as among the reasons behind the Philippines’ high level of learning poverty.

The Vice President also boasted that the DepEd had already provided insurance for its 900,000 teaching and non-teaching personnel.

“We purchased Personal Accident Insurance from the GSIS for all DepEd teachers and personnel. The insurance cover seeks to ease the financial burden on our teachers when accidents occur,” Duterte said.

For two consecutive years, Duterte had put a spotlight on teachers’ welfare during her education report.

“Teachers’ welfare will always be at the forefront of our agenda,” she said. – Rappler.com