SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian sought long-term solutions to teachers’ workload concerns, saying that digitalization and the hiring of non-teaching personnel would help address the issue.

This was in connection with the Department of Education’s plan to release a workload balancing tool to address the teachers’ issues.

Gatchalian has urged the DepEd to adopt a proposal from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies to conduct studies on teacher workload, which will help rationalize their job and allow them to allocate more time for teaching.

In 2019, the state think tank said that the quality and delivery of education is affected by the teachers’ administrative and student support roles, as well as their participation in government programs like mass immunization, deworming, and election.

To help streamline teachers’ workflow and processes, including the creation of lesson plans and the filing of reports, Gatchalian proposed the acceleration of digital transformation in the basic education sector.

He filed Senate Bill 383 or the Digital Transformation in Basic Education Act to promote efficiency in delivering basic education services.

He cited the example of Valenzuela City, which distributed laptops installed with the #VCGuroAko App, online portal that can make it easier for teachers to accomplish their tasks, including the uploading and sharing of documents and the generation of reports.