By Benjo Basas, Teachers’ Dignity Coalition national chairman
President Marcos Jr. recently announced that teacher performance ratings will be based on student outcomes. While acknowledging that including student achievement or test results in teacher evaluations isn’t inherently wrong, we emphasized that it’s crucial to first ensure classroom conditions are conducive to learning.
Let’s prioritize what needs to be fixed first. Classrooms, sufficient materials, uncrowded student populations and ensuring children aren’t hungry when they come to school. Most importantly, teachers shouldn’t be overburdened with work and they should have adequate salaries and benefits.
Holding teachers accountable for systemic failures would be grossly unfair, especially when they are already compensating for the government’s lack of support. Right now, teachers are even shouldering the government’s shortcomings. For “Brigada” (school maintenance), classroom repairs, reading materials for children and sometimes even their snacks.
We have consistently advocated for the restoration of the old Performance Appraisal System for Teachers. It was more straightforward, objective and reflected actual teaching performance, even incorporating learners’ pre-test versus post-test results.
We believe that the continued reliance on the Results-Based Performance Management System, and now the transitional Performance Management and Evaluation System has unnecessarily complicated what should be a fair and transparent process.
Worse, it has been used to exploit and pressure teachers, as teachers are often forced to submit numerous documents just to get a good rating.
With the President’s pronouncement, we are concerned that this policy could inadvertently lead to further blame and punitive measures against teachers.