“If we want to aim high as a nation, we need to support our teachers” – Nograles
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Alexei Nograles encouraged legislators to ‘stand up for teacher quality’ as he delivered a message at the opening of the second Senate hearing on the RCTQ-backed Teacher Education Council Act on 10 December 2020.
“If we want to aim so high as a nation, we need to support our teachers. Whatever is good for our teachers is also good for the country. They deserve nothing less from us,” Sec. Nograles said, reminding the hearing attendees that “teacher education is not just the responsibility of one agency”.
Photo credit: karlonograles.com
“Teachers are molded from the time they take up teacher education in higher education institutions until the time they practice their profession in schools. It is therefore very compelling that agencies such as CHED, TESDA, PRC and DepEd are strategically linked for a common objective –developing quality teachers,” he said.
The proposed bill focuses on teacher and school leader quality by strengthening the TEC and refining its functions based on its original mandate. The strengthened TEC, as proposed by the new bill, “would provide national leadership for promoting excellence so that schools, teachers, and school leaders, as well as tertiary education institutions and teacher educators, have the maximum impact on student learning in all Philippine schools.”
“The reason we are here today and the reason we want to amend RA 7784 or the TEC law is because we have a shared understanding that teachers play a crucial role in ensuring that our learners grow up more prepared for future opportunities and challenges,” Sec. Nograles said.
RA 7784 was enacted into law in 1994 “to formulate policies and standards that shall strengthen and improve the system of teacher education in all existing public and private schools, and identify and designate Centers of Excellence (COE) in teacher education.” Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, Chair of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture, filed Senate Bill 1887 to amend RA 1994. Senator Ramon Revilla Jr also filed a similar version of the bill through Senate Bill 1893.
The hearing was co-chaired by Senator Senator Joel Villanueva, Chair of the Senate Committee on Higher, Technical, and Vocational Education.
Sec. Nograles added: “By amending the TEC law, we will provide a clearer, stronger and more responsive legislative and legal framework that can enable the Teacher Education Council to carry out its original mandate of strengthening teacher education. By amending the TEC law, we offer a systemic, holistic and more sustainable solution—instead of piecemeal solutions— to the problems of quality in education.”
The proposed law seeks to ensure the link and alignment of pre-service education with in-service education, and improve the coordination between the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and other agencies like theProfessional Regulation Commission (PRC) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in order to improve teacher education outcomes.
In hearing various viewpoints on the proposed bill, Sec. Nograles reminded the attendees that “the roads to the greatest reforms in history are always daunting and arduous” and will “necessitate a disruption of a status quo.”
“But with commitment, unity and endurance that are required in the pursuit of the teacher quality reforms envisioned by these bills, I know that we will all be successful,” he said, adding that this “transformation journey towards quality education is being led by no less than President Rodrigo Duterte himself”.
He further said: “Decades from now, we will all look back to this day and ask ourselves: What did we do to ensure that Filipino learners were given quality education? What did we do to sustainably improve the status and quality of our teachers? The answer to these questions will be defined by how we all stand up for teacher quality today.”
RCTQ worked with Sec. Nograles through the Technical Working Group for Teacher Quality (TWG-TQ) which recommended the amendment of the TEC law.
The hearing was attended by Senator Nancy Binay and Senator Imee Marcos who are members of the Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture.
https://www.rctq.ph/?p=2091NewsTeacher Education Council
