TWO weeks before the start of classes, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers called on the Department of Education to look into reports that some teachers are experiencing physical and mental fatigue because of longer work hours under the distance learning scheme.

“As education frontliners, teachers naturally bore the brunt of the shift to remote learning—figuring out the modalities, coming up with new materials, teaching both students and parents of the ‘new normal’, learning about MELCs (most essential learning competencies), writing, editing, and printing of SLMs (self-learning modules), attending multiple daily webinars, among others. There really should be safety nets in place, to avoid draining our teachers,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement.

Apart from these, Basilio noted that teachers have to render six hours of teaching time daily. Preparing lessons and other teaching-related tasks exceed the two-hour allocation. Teachers must also squeeze in the management of multiple classes in blended distance modalities as well as deal with parents who need assistance.

“Some of our teachers reported that they now handle twice the number of learners than before because they also need to guide and hold weekly feedbacking sessions with parents. School heads, on the other hand, had reportedly been relaying orders, demanding reports and whatnots at any random time, prompting some to feel as though they are on-call 24/7,” Basilio said.

ACT also said that the added tasks given by DepEd’s National Educators Academy of the Philippines for the Learning Delivery Modalities Courses adds weight to the burden of the teachers. NEAP reportedly requires a breakdown of the MELC’s to gauge teachers’ mastery of the materials. The group said it is hardly achievable given the short period of time, lack of support and the “barrage” of other tasks teachers must do in preparation for the school opening on October 5.

“This was supposed to be done by a select few teachers and experts in DepEd who will then ‘coach’ the rest of the teaching personnel at school. However, many have reported that regular teachers themselves were tasked to produce multiple outputs for the LDM. These boil down to the state’s failure to efficiently operationalize DepEd’s learning continuity program, largely due to perennial shortages worsened by the recent shift to remote learning. Teachers and learners alike will yet again suffer the consequences of the government’s ineptitude, not to mention the viola-tion of their fundamental rights,” Basilio said.

The group said that while there are normal “birth pains” in any new situation, the difficulties teachers are facing can be significantly minimized with “more foresight” from the Education department and through the “conscious cultivation” of a healthier and more optimal work setup.

“Hence, we demand that DepEd urgently issue guidelines on work schedules and reduce teachers’ load in response to additional time and effort demanded by remote learning. All these should not go beyond the legally sanctioned 8hrs/day-5days/week work schedule. Any work done beyond these hours and beyond their job descriptions should be adequately compensated,” Basilio said.

“While a one-size-fits-all scheme may not work given the varying circumstances of schools and localities, the guidelines should at least provide safety nets for education workers. As we’ve said before, we’re not sacrificial lambs. Teachers will always go beyond their means and mandate, and we expect nothing short of the same from the government,” he added.

The group stressed the need to hire more teachers.

“One key step to resolve the issue of overworking teachers and huge class sizes amid the pandemic is the hiring of additional teachers. Even if DepEd fills all of its vacant plantilla items, it will still need additional workers to meet all the needs of distance learning—from the production of materials to its delivery to learners, to assisting both students and parents in these new modalities. We need a decisive commensurate response from the Duterte admin to the enormous demands of education at this time,” Basilio said.