Guidelines to protect teachers

Zeny S. Caturla

AS I was browsing over news the other day, I noticed a story about a certain group urging the Department of Education to issue guidelines on teachers’ work schedules in view of the COVID-19 situation.

While the situation now is new to us educators, we choose to be of service to the learners, whom we have a responsibility to – pandemic or not.

There may be stress along the way, as well as a toxic environment, but these are all the sacrifices that have to be made in the name of education.

The group said teachers may face burnout as the country shifts to new modes of teaching. Educators may even render longer hours than usual, and feel exhaustion.

They have a point, even as they urged the agency to “reduce teachers’ load in response to additional time and effort demanded by remote learning.”

Educators are now facing new challenges, indeed. They have to embrace and master the new modes of learning. They need to coordinate with parents and students. They need to keep up with the revised basic education curriculum, and produce self-learning modules to boot.

Teachers may also face other concerns, which may drain them at the end of the day.

What the DepEd can do is put safety nets in place to protect the teachers, as they too bear the brunt of the implementation of blended learning techniques, which will start at the opening of the school year on Oct. 5.

What is important now is that the education of the millions of learners nationwide will continue, even if we still are in a health crisis. What we can do now is to work with each other to make this work.

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The author is Principal I at Siñura Elementary School