THIS is a tale of teachers.
Eunice Borlasa is the third teacher in their family. Mother Melina and sister Liezlynne also teach at Eunice’s high school alma mater Luciano B. Rama Sr. Memorial National High School in Camotes Island.
After graduating with a Mass Communication degree from the University of the Philippines Cebu in 2000, Eunice first worked in broadcasting stations at Cebu City.
Inspired by her mother, she took Education units at the Cebu Normal University, passed
the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET), and was accepted last July to teach grade 7 and third year high school students.
In an interview, Eunice told Sun.Star Cebu that three things seal her commitment to the unexpected career path: her permanency of status as a public school teacher, work that keeps her close to her parents who will soon retire, and her role as “instant mother” to more than a hundred students.
“From the first day of service, it felt like I was getting married to my students,” recalled Eunice.
“Abandoned”
A magna cum laude graduate of a local university, Roger recalled that his parents’ lifelong trial made up his mind not to accept a teaching post offered by his alma mater. After his parents retired from decades of teaching at a Cebu City public elementary school in the early 1990s, debts quickly whittled away their pensions.
He said it was ironical that the commitment his parents devoted to teaching other people’s children contrasted with their solitary struggle to send him and his four siblings to school. To be a public school teacher meant to be “abandoned” by the very same people who praised you as a model for the youth and modern hero, he said.
Roger cited the case of his office colleague’s mother, who naively thought that having postgraduate studies and other academic credentials qualified her for promotion. The public school teacher was told by her supervisor to return for a private meeting “on
the 30th” of the month to discuss her promotion.
When she showed up for her appointment, she waited for hours, only to be told that her superior was unable to meet her. She was asked to try again “on the 30th” of the following month. After the meeting failed again to take place, a clerk explained that her appointment date translated to the P30,000 she was expected to give in appreciation for her superior’s help in facilitating her elevation.
Foundation
For its potential to form character and contribute to communities, teaching is a profession that needs to be “revitalized as a vocation.”
This is the rationale behind Proclamation 242, signed on Aug. 24, 2011, which declares National Teachers’ Month from Sept. 5 to Oct. 5.
Oct. 5 is also designated as World Teachers’ Day by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
These public avowals of the importance of teaching in personal and national development is not just driven by sentiment for beloved mentors, active or retired.
Last February, the passage of the law implementing the Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K to 12) basic education curriculum has led to the adoption of measures intended to meet the demand for teachers created by the K to 12 program.
The K to 12 Law now authorizes the Department of Education (DepEd) to hire non-Education graduates to teach science, math and other specialized subjects. This overrules Republic Act 7836, which permits only Education graduates who have passed the LET to teach in elementary and high school, reported The Philippine Daily Inquirer last Feb. 3.
There is an anticipated shortage of LET passers to meet the teachers needed to handle the additional two years of senior high school.
Since enrolment in college is expected to lower in 2016, college instructors, graduates of vocational and technical courses, and practitioners with expertise in specialized learning areas can also be hired if assessed to be qualified to teach in high school, full- or part-time.
However, the career paths opened by the K to 12 curriculum must not overpower the spirit of public duty with which teachers imbue their work, from the daily preparation of lesson plans and devotion of more than the eight hours of paid work to plan, implement and follow-up on class lessons up to the nurturing of each student’s values, standards and aspirations.
Expectations are also raised for the DepEd bureaucracy to implement a system of continuous learning to enhance the competence of teachers and administrators to channel the K to 12 curriculum for national progress.
In a meritocracy, where the talented and the morally upright assume leadership, aberrations such as abuse of authority and corruption should be denounced and exposed.
Any education bred by a system of patronage, sycophancy and exploitation is hollow, self-delusional, and self-destructive.
We dishonor our mentors with this betrayal.
