AS SCHOOL break starts, the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) again calls on the DepEd leadership to consider junking the results-based performance management system (RPMS) and revert to the simplified performance appraisal system for teachers (PAST) which was in use for several decades until the introduction of RPMS in 2012.
We are supposed to be with our families or taking a vacation right now after the daily teaching routine for 10 months, yet most of our colleagues are still required to report to their schools and accomplish this RPMS.
We are teachers and we are expected to teach our pupils and students, a duty that we diligently performed in our classrooms for the whole year, thus we deserve a break. This RPMS demands so much of our time, during and unfortunately, even after the school year.
RPMS is the performance rating system required by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) since 2012. While it is based on a CSC order, the implementation varies from agency to agency.
We have raised this concern many times and are still waiting for the DepEd’s action since having several dialogues last year.
The system requires the submission of documentations of practically everything a teacher does. It is a rigid and document-based performance system that causes stress and anxiety and steals the time of teachers for teaching. The most important factor in the teaching and learning process is the time spent with the learners and not with documentation which cannot be used to gauge teachers’ actual performance. There should be a change in the policy.
The TDC last year raised this concern and immediately sought a dialogue with DepEd officials with the hope that the authorities would at least suspend its implementation. Along with the RPMS, the group also demanded the reduction of teachers’ clerical tasks and another rigid lesson preparation, among other issues which they labelled as Seven Demands.
Due to the failure to significantly address their concerns, the TDC staged a 12-day picket in front of the DepEd’s main office in Pasig from Sept. 24 to Oct. 5, 2018. (By Benjo Basas, National Chairman, Teachers' Dignity Coalition)