Current international best practice research evidence unequivocally shows that teacher quality and perceptive school leadership are vital in raising student achievement.
However, there is evidence that teachers and school leaders alone cannot bring substantive changes. The quality of teaching and teachers is entwined with the work organization in which teachers find themselves; the quality of teacher selection and education; the quality of teacher careers; and the quality of teacher evaluation or appraisal.
One metric used to measure teacher quality in a system is to cite the number and distribution of teachers with higher degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate diplomas within individual schools.
This rubric can be misleading because graduate and post-graduate qualifications do not necessarily correlate with effective teaching skills.
Gaining an additional qualification sometimes enhances a teacher’s content knowledge. However, unless there is an accompanying enhancement of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), a teacher may not change his/her effectiveness in the classroom.
Content knowledge represents teachers’ understanding of the subject matter taught. However, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is the capacity to structure that subject matter and make it accessible to students at all age levels. The latter form of knowledge (PCK) discerns the outstanding teacher from others.
DepEd has sought to improve its standards for teachers and school leaders by establishing a Results-based Performance Management System (RPMS).
It includes the national adoption and implementation of the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) along with the Philippines Professional Standards for School Heads (PPSSH) and the Philippine Professional Standards for Supervisors (PPSS).
The RPMS role is to gather data based on the PPST and the PPSH to assist the DepEd Bureau of Human Resources and Organizational Development (BHROD) in upgrading teacher hiring, promotion, and career policies progression and rewards and recognition.
In 2018, DepEd partnered with the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) for a Capacity Building Program in Science and Mathematics Education for SHS teachers.
The major step in re-energizing a national plan to transform the National Educator Academy of the Philippines (NEAP transformation) came in 2019.
In collaboration with the BHROD, NEAP has embarked on a wide-ranging plan to provide enhanced continuing professional development (CPD) and capacity-building for teachers, school leaders, supervisors, and non-teaching personnel in the public basic education system.
The effect of this national effort working through decentralized training centers should result in a better-prepared teaching force to address metacognition in learners, particularly the 21CS that are so necessary.
Figure 1: Number of Locally Funded Teachers Nationwide, 2020
Teachers are required by law to participate in the implementation of other government programs such as mass immunizations (Department of Health), conditional cash transfer (Department of Social Welfare and Development), and national election polling booth duties (Commission on Elections), among others.
Teachers are also assigned additional administrative roles, including student guidance, disaster response, school planning, data collection, monitoring, and evaluation.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has permitted the creation of formal “assistant level” positions in schools for non-teaching personnel that will permit the addition of support staff to undertake some of the non-teaching administrative roles in schools.
Teachers will be able to focus on lesson preparation, teaching, and student assessment instead of overloading with other tasks that distract them from student teaching and learning.
Local government units (LGUs) make substantial educational allocations, but these do not translate to significant additions to teaching force numbers.
The DepEd EBEIS reports that in SY 2019-2020, only 11,553 teachers nationwide were locally funded, a mere 1.4% of existing DepEd teachers (figure 1).
Source:
Office of the Undersecretary for Administration (OUA)
