School Opening not earlier than Sept.13, Pushed!

Inianunsiyo kamakailan ng DepEd na bukod sa August 23, option din ang September bilang schedule ng pagbubukas ng klase matapos makatanggap ng negatibong reaction mula sa netizens patungkol sa naunang paahayag ng schedule. Sinabi naman ng Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) na dapat simulan ang klase ng hindi mas aagap ng September 13 upang makompleto ang 80 days na proportional vacation pay (PVP) kasama ang Christmas break at bakasyon sa loob ng school year.

Ayon kay G. Raymond Basilio, ACT Secretary-General, “It is already too much that teachers are made to work for 13 straight months in the current school year, and shortening their much-needed break after the taxing first year of distance learning ‘is just plain abuse.”

“It is either they pay our teachers with 25% of daily pay for each day of overtime work, or convert such to more rest days, which is equivalent to 19 days. With this, opening of the next school year can be scheduled on October 4. It is very insensitive of the DepEd to treat our teachers like tireless machines or beasts of burden that it can just whip to action. Hindi tamad ang ating mga guro kaya humihiling sila ng sapat na pahinga, mga tao silang nagkakasakit na sa bigat ng gawain at tagal ng pagpapatrabaho, ” dagdag pa ni Basilio.

“No amount of extended class days can remedy the lack of teaching and learning resources and the faultiness of the curriculum. The DepEd and the Duterte government should have first an honest-to-goodness assessment of how they provided for the needs of education and how the distance learning was designed and prepared if they really want our performance to improve,”pagtatapos niya.