Measures of academic ease by DepEd ‘not real’ says teachers’ group

On Monday, a teachers' group said that the recommended academic ease measures by the Department of Education (DepEd) are not happening in schools. According to them, perhaps there is a need to rethink the whole distance learning process.

Academic ease is not real, it is mere lip service as far as teachers’ workload is concerned,

said Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) National Chairperson Benjamin Valbuena.

After the damaged brought by the recent typhoons, a call for academic break appeared in social media from students' groups and teachers. Despite the calls, the department said that a large-scale academic break may not be necessary since academic ease measures are in place.

DepEd said that it may have a massive impact on the lives of students if their learning will break off; however, officials said that they will be as flexible as possible for the students requirements for the meantime.

ACT debunked DepEd’s claim that it has been implementing academic ease after rejecting the proposed academic break by student groups last week.

The alleged ease of work is not felt because DepEd is still doing the same thing and no solution is being given to the burdens of teachers,

Valbuena said.

Valbuena noted that the agency continues to absurdly impose activities and requirements that are not applicable and essential at this time such as class observations, monthly celebratory programs, contests, loads of paper works, and the same teaching loads and class schedules as in the pre-pandemic face-to-face set up.

DepEd’s very narrow approach of simply transmitting the usual school activities through online and modular platforms deny the very limitations and the different nature of these modalities, and the real impacts of the pandemic and the crisis to the lives of teachers and learners,

Valbuena said.

As such, the teachers as frontliners of education carry the heaviest burdens of this failure of understanding,

he added.

Teachers continue to have to do the printing of weekly modules and activity sheets, look for donors of gadgets and printing materials, while they carry more teaching units and bigger classes to accommodate transferees from private schools,

Valbuena said. 

He added that such problems couldn’t be resolved by a mere memo that recommends and academic ease but by a bold government steps and sufficient funding to make distance learning work.

What we need is to rethink the whole distance learning design and redirect it towards being more responsive to the realities of our teachers and learners, and relevant to the situation,

Valbuena explained.

ACT warned that the continued difficulty that the teachers are experiencing would sooner or later break their backs and would cause the collapse of distance learning’ if the government continue to refuse to overhaul the distance learning design.