THE Department of Education (DepEd) in Leyte Division is keen on implementing the Results-based Performance Management System (RPMS) manual aligned with the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) following the intensive training of its school heads and teachers.
Since August 29 to September 22, some 2,667 school principals, master teachers, and identified teachers have attended a three-day seminar for the official roll-out and the scheduled implementation of the RPMS-PPST in the division.
Marilyn Siao, assistant schools division superintendent in Leyte, congratulated the participants for successfully completing the sessions, adding they are now ready to apply the knowledge in their respective schools “for all teachers to be highly proficient.”
“Hopefully by October all schools in Leyte will be simultaneously undertaking the desired steps for teachers to gradually develop and demonstrate proficiently or beyond the priority 12 strands in PPST through varied training and non-training modalities and be tracked through the RMPS mechanisms,” Siao told SunStar Philippines.
Siao also lauded the leadership of Schools Division Superintendent Ronelo Al Firmo for empowering the teachers in Leyte and “for keeping the spring of inspiration continually flow and be felt by our teachers.”
“Teachers will really be given justice in terms of their work because everything is rated with corresponding rubrics. With the PPST being the technology and the RPMS being the operating system, teachers who are really hardworking will really emerge in this program,” said Gerry Ranes, school principal II in Alangalang, Leyte.
“Teachers will really be given recognition because, basically with this RPMS, teachers will be reclassified. Promotion is very good because there will be no more competition among the teachers,” added Ranes, who is one of the resource speakers during the seminar.
Ranes, however, assured that the new program is “teacher-friendly.”
“I am very much certain the teachers will adopt this,” he said.
Grace Villanueva, the education program supervisor in Leyte, added that the RPMS-PPST will pave the way for the delivery of “technical assistance” to the “beginning and proficient teachers” in the field.
“We need to pull them up. How? Provide technical assistance. Let them understand PPST from A to Z,” Villanueva urged the participants.
Villanueva maintained that the new system “is always for the interest of the learners.”
According to DepEd Order No. 2, s. 2015 (Guidelines on the Establishment and Implementation of RPMS in DepEd), the RPMS “aims to provide comprehensive guidelines for the adoption of the Civil Service Commission’s (CSC) Strategic Performance Management System (SPMS) in DepEd.”
The implementation of the K to 12 curriculum and the ASEAN integration, among other new educational frameworks, also paved the way for the crafting of the PPST.
The alignment of the RPMS with the PPST “has led to the development of new results-based assessment tools.”
DepEd claimed that the PPST “has been nationally validated.”
Secretary Maria Leonor Briones signed it into a policy through DepEd Order No. 42, s. 2017.
“The PPST articulates what constitutes teacher quality through well-defined domains, strands and indicators that provide measures of professional learning, competent practice and effective engagement across teachers’ career stages,” it said.
The Australian Aid through the Basic Education Sector Transformation (BEST) funded the preparation of the new rating manual.
Meanwhile, Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) and the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) continue to assail the new rating system, saying it is “rigid, document-centered and would result in anxiety, stress and physical and mental exhaustion.” (SunStar Philippines)