Statement of Sen. Win Gatchalian on teachers working beyond prescribed hours

PHILIPPINES, January 30 - Press Release
January 30, 2025

STATEMENT OF SEN. WIN GATCHALIAN ON TEACHERS WORKING BEYOND PRESCRIBED HOURS

The latest EDCOM II report highlights a persistent concern -- two out of three teachers continue working beyond 40 hours per week due to repetitive paperwork. I have long emphasized that this excessive administrative workload takes away valuable time that should be dedicated to teaching and improving student learning outcomes.

We still have a long way to go to ensure that there are enough non-teaching staff, Administrative Officers (AO) and Project Development Officers (PDO), for more than 47,000 public schools in our country. For Fiscal Year 2024, 3,500 new AO II plantilla positions and 1,500 new PDO I plantilla positions were created, respectively. As of December 2024, however 3,028 AO II positions remain unfilled. On top of these unfilled positions, the DepEd shall create 10,000 AO II positions this fiscal year.

Moving forward, we have to keep creating and filling positions for both AOs and PDOs in the next fiscal years. We have to rationalize the administrative and ancillary tasks. I also reiterate my call for an expedited process for hiring teachers and non-teaching personnel to reduce teachers' administrative workload. We will continue working with the Department of Education to implement policies that protect the well-being of our teachers and improve working conditions in our schools.