Teachers should not be ‘burdened’ with feeding program tasks — solon

MANILA, Philippines — Teachers should no longer be “burdened” with non-teaching tasks such as activities related to the government feeding program, a lawmaker said on Monday.

Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo, chairperson of the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture, made the remarks during the hearing of bills seeking to convert the National Feeding Program into a National Nutrition Program. 

Romulo asked Wilfredo Cabral, Department of Education (DepEd) undersecretary for human resource and organizational development, if teachers are still involved in the feeding program.

READ: DepEd told: Consider logistics, other factors in school feeding program

“There are those involved, but we would like to make sure that they have compensation,” Cabral said in response. 

But Romulo said, “That’s not the point.”

“The point is, the quality of our schools is declining because, one of the reasons is that, teachers and students lack sufficient instructional time in the actual classroom,” Romulo said, partly in Filipino. “We don’t want to burden our teachers with more work.” 

“As much as possible, the direction should be that teachers no longer have any involvement. But to tell us that it’s okay and that you’ll just give additional — that’s wrong,” the lawmaker continued.

“That’s the direction,” Cabral said. “Of course, there are other tasks where their involvement may still be possible. But as much as possible, we really do not want teachers to be involved in non-teaching tasks.”

However, Cabral noted that the deployment of 11,000 administrative officers (AO) assigned in over 40,000 public schools for such tasks will only begin around June.

In 2024, the DepEd already ordered the immediate removal of administrative tasks of public school teachers.

DepEd Order No. 002 s. 2024 states that it aims to remove the administrative tasks of teachers to “maximize their time” in actual teaching.

Instead, the order said school heads and non-teaching personnel should have sole responsibility for administrative tasks, including the “feeding” program.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the P6.793-trillion 2026 national budget with DepEd getting a P1.015 allocation.

This includes the budget for hiring AOs, amounting to P2.2 billion, on top of the P25.6 billion allocation for the expanded School-Based Feeding Program.

The program is expected to benefit 4.6 million learners nationwide, providing meals to all Kindergarten and Grade 1 students and to malnourished students in Grades 2 to 6, for a total of 200 feeding days. /mr