Teachers group gathers signatures vs lesson logs

Teachers’ groups from Metro Manila and neighboring provinces said they would troop to the Department of Education (DepEd) on Monday and submit a petition with at least 50,000 signatures asking Education Secretary Leonor Briones to lift an order requiring teachers to make daily lesson logs.

Teachers Dignity Coalition (TDC) chair Benjo Basas yesterday said teachers from the capital, Calabarzon and Central Luzon would seek an audience with Briones to also appeal for the reduction of clerical tasks for public school teachers in general.

The new format for daily lesson logs was yet another clerical burden for school teachers, teachers complained.

The signature campaign was launched last Sunday following a series of forums on teachers’ rights and welfare, Basas told the Inquirer.

“Initially, the signature campaign was launched in Metro Manila, Calabarzon and Central Luzon. But we are aiming for a national scope so we have also made the signature forms available through e-mail and Facebook,” he said.

In a statement yesterday, Briones said she has not made a decision recalling the order but she was open to a discussion on the matter. A consultation with stakeholders will also be held before policy determination will be made, she added.

The agency noted that the new format of the daily lesson logs was merely meant as a planning tool in terms of budgeting time and choosing the appropriate activities and assessment strategies to ensure that students meet the competencies desired in each lesson.

“The DepEd wishes to assure teachers and the public that the new daily lesson log format was created with the best interests of teachers in mind,” the statement said.

TDC wrote a letter to Briones reiterating that DepEd Order No. 42 was unnecessary and that older guidelines on the use of simplified lesson logs be enforced instead.

The group enumerated several reasons why the order should be halted immediately.

For starters, the group pointed out that the order was never included in the summer in-service training of teachers as the order was only issued on June 17 or four days before the resumption of classes last month.

“Many school heads are in confusion as to how it will be implemented,” it also stated. “In several instances, teachers were told to adopt the daily lesson log template even without the benefit of proper orientation,” it added.

Such confusion has also resulted in conflicts between teachers and school administrators, it furthered. “There were several reports that teachers got sick and hospitalized due to exhaustion and extreme fatigue. A teacher in a province allegedly committed suicide because of this,” claimed the group.

The new lesson log requirement is “truly a burden to teachers,” the group stated in the letter.

Earlier, ACT Teachers party-list issued a statement saying the new requirement was an “unnecessary hardship” that took away their time for developing teaching aids.