29 January 2024

Recognizing the indispensable role that teachers play in addressing the learning crisis, the Research Center for Teacher Quality (RCTQ) acknowledges and commends the Department of Education’s (DepEd) commitment to enhancing teachers’ well-being as outlined in the Basic Education Report 2024. The promise of removing administrative tasks, providing overtime pay, and issuing a policy on overload pay aligns seamlessly with RCTQ’s longstanding advocacy to support teachers, ensuring their focus on effective teaching.

Overworked teachers have been identified as a significant factor contributing to learning poverty in the Philippines. Since 2017 when the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) that RCTQ helped put together became an education policy, the Center has consistently emphasized the need to deload teachers from administrative functions. The recent initiatives by DepEd reflect a positive move toward realizing this long-standing recommendation.

Moreover, RCTQ is optimistic that the hiring of administrative personnel will align with its recommendations for a more sustainable, contextualized, and evidence-based school structure and staffing standards submitted to DepEd as part of ongoing RCTQ-DepEd collaboration.

RCTQ currently supports DepEd through the

  • development and refinement of new teaching and learning support materials for the pilot implementation of the K to 10 MATATAG Curriculum;
  • technical assistance to the National Educators Academy of the Philippines through standards-based professional development programs for teachers; and
  • conduct of a study on school organizational structure and staffing standards (SOSSS).

VP and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte, in delivering the BER 2024, committed to provide strategic guidance to vital education councils—including the Teacher Education Council (TEC) whose enabling law was passed with RCTQ’s technical assistance. RCTQ will continue to assist TEC in fulfilling its mandate as stipulated in RA 11713 or the Excellence in Teacher Education Act.

RCTQ appreciates the dedication of DepEd in ‘walking the talk’, and commits to further support the Department in its programs and projects that sustain the improvement of the teaching profession and the quality of education in the Philippines.