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Teaching Staff
Anyone who chooses a teaching career in the Philippines must hold a degree
in teacher education. Teachers in public and
private elementary schools must have at least
a bachelor’s degree in elementary education.
High school teachers are expected to have a bachelor’s
degree in secondary education with specialization
(a major and a minor) in high school subjects.
Both degrees are awarded upon successful completion
of approved teacher education courses in recognized
institutions. Teaching in colleges or professional
degree programmes at the tertiary level requires
at least a master’s degree in a particular
area of specialization. A doctorate is required
of those who teach courses in graduate programmes.
All
teachers complete a four-year degree programme.
The usual programmes are the Bachelor of Secondary
Education and Bachelor of Elementary Education.
Specialist programmes are also available in
agriculture, business, industrial and physical
education. Courses include a core of general
education, at least one year of professional
education and studies in the major teaching
area. Curricula for each programme are approved
by the Commission on Higher Education and institutions
have flexibility to vary these models. Until
now, the curriculum for the pre-service training
is still the 1986 curriculum with some modifications
and revisions in accordance with DECS Order
No. 3 of 1993, which provides for new minimum
requirements in the general education and other
components of initial bachelor-level courses
of study. Non-education graduates may complete
an eighteen-unit Certificate of Professional
Education in order to qualify as primary or
secondary teachers. After completion of these
programmes, the students are required to take
the Philippine Board Examination for Teachers
to qualify to teach at the elementary and secondary
levels.
The
Magna Carta for Public School Teachers (Republic
Act No. 4670) enacted in 1966 states in Section
15 that teachers’ salaries “(a)
shall compare favourably with those paid in
other occupations requiring equivalent or similar
qualifications, training and abilities; (b)
shall be such as to ensure teachers a reasonable
standard of life for themselves and their families;
(c) shall be properly graded so as to recognize
the fact that certain positions require higher
qualifications and greater responsibility than
others, provided that the general salary scale
be such that the relation between the lowest
and highest salary paid will be of reasonable
order.” In the case of the private school
teachers, the law also provides that “the
remuneration paid to them shall, as a general
rule, be comparable to current salary rates
for corresponding government positions.” The
teachers’ salary was increased in 1995;
however, the average teachers’ salary
at present is inadequate as source of livelihood.
The
Magna Carta similarly states that “any
teacher engaged in actual classroom teaching
shall be required to render not more than six
hours of actual classroom teaching a day, preparation
and correction of exercises and other work
incidental to his/her normal teaching duties.”
Secondary teachers shall be assigned to no more
than six daily forty-minute periods of instruction.
For college, the normal teaching load of a full-time
instructor shall be eighteen hours a week. The
teaching load of part-time instructors who are
full-time employees outside of teaching shall
not exceed twelve hours per week.
Teachers
belong to the government service and they are
governed by civil service laws, rules and regulations.
Teachers can only join the service if they
meet the prescribed qualifications, such as:
appropriate civil service eligibility, bachelor’s
degree in education or its equivalent, master’s
degree and doctorate degree, good moral standing,
etc.
Training
activities at the national, regional, district
and school levels are conducted by the DepEd,
teacher education institutions, other government
and non-government agencies, and international
agencies as part of staff development programmes
and to meet in-service training needs of teachers.
The Department through linkages with other
agencies and associations, initiates, plans
and implements in-service training programmes.
Such programmes take the form of conventions,
conferences, short-term courses, summer institutes,
workshops and seminars. These activities are
designed for teachers, supervisors and administrators
of various levels.
Poor
quality of education is due, among other causes,
to deficiencies in pre-service training and
in-service training of teachers, and unqualified
teachers teaching subjects outside their areas
of specialization. For instance, only slightly
more than half of the mathematics teachers
in high school majored in this subject, while
only 4% of physics teachers majored in this
subject. There is a need for an institutionalized
support system to strengthen in-service training,
clearly defined career paths and prospects
of mobility in the teaching profession to enhance
motivation. Also there is the question of regulation
of the teaching load, which according to a
study conducted revealed that the Filipino
teacher has seventy-two tasks other than teaching.
In the 1980s, massive staff development programmes
were institutionalized. For 1992, the Bureau
of Elementary Education conducted various training
programmes at the local level, including seminars
and workshops on the maintenance of school
facilities and other instructional tools and
devices, and on the management of Learning
Resource Centres for elementary school administrators,
seminars and workshops on effective instructional
management of multigrade classes for teachers,
and a training course designed to upgrade the
competencies of public school teachers in assessing
children with special needs.
The
Supervisory Skills Enhancement Programme was
also launched. This programme sought to strengthen
the supervisors’ commitment to their
role, update their knowledge of the content
and process of instruction in their areas of
supervision and improve their methodology of
evaluating and monitoring teaching-learning.
At the first stage of implementation, 1,049
division supervisors participated in the programme.
Science and mathematics supervisors underwent
an additional week-long training, sponsored
by the Department of Science and Technology-Science
Education Institute. The training was intended
to enrich the supervisors’ stock of knowledge
of the content and methodology in their areas
of supervision, especially as 7.7% of the science
supervisors and 18.2% of the mathematics supervisors
were found to be non-specialists in their respective
fields. Likewise, a one-week follow-up workshop
for 56 fourth-year private high school trainers
in technology and home economics was conducted.
A total of 35,704 fourth-year teachers from
public and private secondary schools underwent
training in content, strategies and evaluation
in science, mathematics, English, Filipino,
social studies, values education, physical
education, health education, music, technology
and home economics. While the institutionalization
of in-service training is being vigorously
pursued, the provision of local and foreign
fellowships remains a part of staff development.
At
the tertiary level, schools prepare their own
training programmes. Recently, the College
Faculty Development Fund Programme was formulated
to help update the competencies of teachers,
specifically for the faculty of private colleges
and universities. Similarly, faculty members
in private colleges and universities were also
accorded a chance to pursue graduate education
through the Faculty Development Fund. In 1992,
a total of twenty-eight college teachers benefited
from the fund. Training programmes have also
been organized to upgrade the competencies
of vocational/technical subject teachers.
Ad hocbodies of experts in various fields
of specializations or disciplines including
teacher education have also been strengthened
to provide the required expertise and serve
as consultative and advisory bodies. These
are the Technical Panels which are involved
in the areas of development and revision of
policies and standards, setting directions
for specific programmes, and monitoring and
evaluating of programmes.
In addition, the DepEd Integrated
Scholarship Programme which is covered by an
annual Memorandum of Agreement between the
Department and the participating institutions
has been in operation for the last decade.
In recent years, the grants have concentrated
on short-term training programmes so that more
teachers can benefit from the in-service training
programmes. Other training programmes include
management skills for secondary school principals,
conference-workshops for school administrators
and master teachers, and short-term courses
for both elementary and secondary school teachers.
Among
the measures taken to improve the quality of
education in the future, a massive training
programme for teachers will be implemented
to develop skills for effective use of modern
school facilities. The programme will consist
of a pre-service and in-service training component.
Pre-service will involve deregulation and re-orientation
of the study programmes of teacher education
colleges towards specific teaching competencies
evolved from an analysis of clientele needs
as well as adaptation of successful teacher
education programmes both locally and abroad.
In-service programmes will sustain professional
upgrading or development of teachers through
the revitalization of an existing school-based
structure (Learning Action Cells) and by strengthening
linkages with teacher education programmes.
A teacher induction programme shall be considered
to commence entry into the teaching profession.
This phase will subject a newly hired teacher
on probationary status to on-the-job observation
by master teachers. Only after completing the
teacher induction programme where on-the-job
training and skills certification shall be
undertaken will tenure be granted to a newly
hired teacher.
In
line with the provisions of Republic Act No.
7836 (Philippine Teachers Professionalization
Act of 1994), a career progression scheme for
teachers, administrators and specialists will
be developed and tied up with the Continuing
Professional Education under the Board for
Professional Teachers. Performance evaluation
will likewise be undertaken on a regular basis
to focus on certain accountability targets
to measure performance. Merit-based incentives
and rewards will be an integral part of the
merit evaluation scheme.
Educational
research and information
To establish a basis for policy and strategy
formulation as well as development of programmes
and projects in the education sector, several
studies on the following issues have been
undertaken by the Department of Education
through its different Bureaus in recent years:
drop-outs at the elementary level; survey
of existing material resources of the Learning
Resource Centres including the school libraries;
search for the most effective public elementary
schools; implementation of the New Secondary
Education Curriculum; review and assessment
of the Government subsidy for private secondary
education; efficiency and effectiveness of
four literacy programmes.
The
National Education Testing and Research Centre
(NETRC) has undertaken a research entitled
School Assessment System to develop an assessment
system for pupils in Grades II, IV and VI of
elementary education. |
