THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers wants the workload of public school teachers reduced to allow them to focus more on preparing lessons, checking output and monitoring the progress of their students.

ACT said that teachers in public schools have heavier workloads than those in private schools and teachers in neighboring countries.

“The Department of Education has maxed up all public school teachers with 6 hours daily teaching and administrative duties, with others even given workload that exceeds six hours. Katumbas po ito ng 30 oras ng pagtuturo sa loob ng isang linggo, kung kaya sobra na ang pagod at paos ng ating mga guro sa isang buwan pa lamang na pagtuturo. Labis-labis po ang trabahong ito kumpara sa trabaho ng mga guro sa private schools, state colleges and universities at maging mga paaralan sa ibang bansa,” Ruby Bernardo, the group’s spokesperson, said.

ACT said that weekly teaching load of teachers in De La Salle Zobel High School, University of Santo Tomas Senior High School and Xavier High School amounts to 10 to 12 hours, while another 10 to 12 hours is allotted for meetings, seminars and consultations.

In the University of the Philippines, faculty members teach for 12 hours weekly, while those in Polytechnic University of the Philippines have 15 hours weekly of regular teaching load.

“Non-stop teaching for six hours daily is simply inhumane. It is equivalent to 6 to 9 classes handled daily for 40 minutes to one hour class time, depending on the subject taught. Dapat i-konsidera rin na ang mga klaseng ito ay bumibilang mula 45 hanggang 60 estudyante o higit pa. Sobrang piga na sa pagod ang ating mga guro pagkatapos ng maghapon na pagtuturo, at ang nalalabing dalawang oras ng trabaho sa isang araw ay napupunta pa paggawa ng mga reports at non-teaching duties,” Bernardo said.

“In reality, lesson preparation, checking of outputs and grade computation are brought home and done beyond work hours without proper compensation, while this should not be the case as these are integral duties of a teacher. Malaking panahon pa ang ginugugol ng mga guro sa lesson preparation dahil hindi na pwede ngayon ang chalk-talk lamang kundi kailangan ng mga visual presentations at iba’t ibang class activities. Mahabang oras din ang kailangan para mag-check ng output dahil malaki ang mga klase. At the end of the day, it is our teachers’ physical and mental well-being which is sacrificed,” she added.

The 1967 Magna Carta for Public School Teachers states that teachers should teach for a maximum of six hours while the remaining two hours of their eight-hour work should be devoted to lesson preparation and other teaching-related duties.

“Instead of easing our workload, the DepEd is wielding the Magna Carta to squeeze us to the hilt. Instead of recognizing the 6-hour rule as the maximum limit, they have deemed it as the teachers’ regular load. It is their way to make it appear that there are excess teachers in some schools that they can transfer to others wherein shortage is really flagrant,” Bernardo said.

“Overworking our teachers is counterproductive to education recovery. We need less teaching and non-teaching load. We need more time to prepare our lessons and fulfil other teaching-related duties to be able to deliver quality teaching. We need our rightful time to rest. If we want the quality of teaching to improve, we need to reduce to four hours the daily time allotment for actual teaching, while the other four hours should be used for lesson preparations and other teaching-related duties,” she added.