NEWLY installed Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara has suspended the Results-based Performance Management System (RPMS) to lessen the workload of public school teachers across the country.
As this developed, an organization of teachers staged a protest at the Department of Education (DepEd) central office in Pasig City to demand the scrapping of the RPMS.
The RPMS was usually done prior to the opening of classes which, according to Angara, contributes to the heavy workload of the mentors.
“It comes at a time approaching the start of classes. There is much documentation needed to be done by teachers. We will suspend it for, maybe one or one-and-a-half months,” Angara told reporters.
The former senator was also poised to look into the ban on classroom decorations, initially implemented during the tenure of Vice President and concurrent Education Secretary Sara Duterte last year.
The order, which aims to ensure cleanliness in schools with the removal of unnecessary signage and artworks, was met with concerns from teachers as it helps them in their teaching tasks.
“There are arguments for and against it. I will conduct an informal survey and see the sentiment of the teachers and the learners,” Angara said.
Ahead of the opening of classes, the new Education chief gave assurance of stability in students’ learning through the continuous implementation of the MATATAG curriculum.
“We really want curriculum stability. As for me, I don’t have plans to amend it. I just want to work from what’s already there. We will continue the pilot implementation of the MATATAG curriculum for Grades 1, 4, and 7 for this year,” he explained.
Angara also vowed to address classroom backlogs nationwide, focusing on “size innovations” and early procurement of construction materials.
“The problem is that we construct more classrooms yearly because of population increase. We have only built 2,000 classrooms which contributes to the growing deficit (in the number of classrooms) every year,” he said.
“We will look into the ‘standards’ in constructing these classrooms as some would prefer different sizes. There is no one-size-fits-all measurement as some places would not require a larger space,” he added.
Angara lamented that the ‘decades- old’ problems in the country’s education system cannot be solved on his own.
Meanwhile, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers-National Capital Region Union urged the government to abolish the RPMS.
“We call on the government to rectify if not scrap altogether the RPMS, the group’s leader Ruby Bernardo said.
The RPMS has been a subject of criticism by ACT and the ACT Teachers Party-list who argue that it is burdensome for educators and support personnel. They claim that the system inadequately measures capabilities and fails to enhance performance.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline Angara suspends teacher performance reviews, eyes classroom innovations
