REMOVAL OF TEACHERS' ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS

MIA P. VALENZUELA

A day after Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte delivered her 2024 Basic Education Report, she immediately issued Department Order (DO) 002 which orders the removal of administrative tasks from teachers’ workloads.

According to the Education Chief, the DO shall take effect immediately upon its approval, issuance, and publication on the DepEd website.

Under the DO, administrative tasks are defined as work “related to the effective and efficient operations of schools or programs, projects, and services which are not directly related to teaching and academic learning.”

Such tasks, the DO stated, shall be performed by School Heads and non-teaching personnel.

Citing a Teacher Workload Balance Study (2018), DepEd said around 50 common ancillary services on average are assigned to teachers in addition to their regular teaching load.

This resulted to understaffed schools being unable to provide sufficient support services, the agency said.

In removing the administrative tasks of teachers, they will be able to maximize their time in actual classroom teaching and focus on the teaching and learning process and become effective facilitators of learning, according to the order.

This shall also help protect and uplift the welfare and wellbeing of public school teachers to support them to teach better which in turn shall realize quality learning among the Filipino learners, the order added.

The order, which shall be implemented across all governance levels, with guidelines released subsequent to the DO to guide DepEd schools, Schools Division Offices (SDOs), Regional Offices and Central offices, will cover all government-employed teachers engaged in classroom teaching, on a fuIl-time basis, under permanent, provisional, or substitute status in all public elementary and secondary schools.

-oOoThe order is Teacher III at Sto. Rosario Elementary School