MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd) should immediately probe reports of teachers allegedly buying ready-made research for promotion and funding, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said Monday.
Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate committee on basic education, dubbed such practice of buying ready-made research as “unethical,” adding that these “show lack of integrity and should not be tolerated.”
“I am also urging the department to institute mechanisms that would thoroughly vet research output submitted by teachers,” Gatchalian said in a statement.
Gatchalian likewise said that DepEd should decongest the workload of teachers to give them time to engage in research.
“Prior to the pandemic, they are already burdened with non-teaching tasks and the shift to distance learning proved overwhelming,” Gatchalian said, adding that the quality of teacher education and training in the country should also be improved.
“In reforming teacher education and training, we should foster coherence in the entire continuum of teacher education and training—from pre-service to in-service—and ensure that our aspiring teachers are equipped with the skills that DepEd require, including the capacity to produce quality research,” he added.
The senator made the call following a Facebook post which claimed that some teachers are buying ready-made action research papers or pay people to do their research “for funding and promotion purposes.”
The said Facebook post also included screenshots of teachers inquiring online for ready-made research papers.