MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education has issued a set of guidelines for employees at its central office to secure the approval of the Office of the Secretary conducting training activities and events.
According to a copy of the DepEd memorandum shown to Philstar.com, DepEd Central Office requires employees to run planned events through its human resources division. Proposed activities are "subject to the approval of the Office of the Secretary" and cannot pish through otherwise.
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"This aims to safeguard the utilization of public resources in the conduct of these activities and to ensure the relevance of the attendance of officials and personnel to the same," the memorandum, dated March 28, stated.
The memorandum also requires agencies within the Central Office to submit a "briefer" on the planned event to the DepEd spokesperson and the Public Affairs Service — the unit that manages the public relations of DepEd — before requesting a press release from the latter.
DepEd Central Office employees are also required to disclose in a "post-participation report" the number of event attendees and a short description of them, an outline of the activities done and other basic information about the event.
The guidelines also state that as a "general rule," all authorized training or events attended by DepEd Central Office employees will be on “official time” rather than “official business.” This means employees pay for travel expenses out of their own pockets instead of being reimbursed.
However, DepEd issued a clarification on Friday stating that its human resources division will determine whether employees’ attendance will be on “official time” or “official business.”
Teachers banned from community events during school hours
DepEd issued a separate memorandum for teachers on the same day which bans them from joining "community service or extracurricular activities during school hours" as these will "impede the performance of their teaching work and responsibilities."
DepEd said in the order that it is issuing the directive to "empower our teachers and make it clear that they have the option to say no" to invitations to participate in community events and service, even for those held outside school hours.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines slammed the DepEd order on Thursday and questioned the agency for meddling with teachers’ activities in their personal time.
"The DepEd is getting more and more controlling of the teachers’ conduct of their lives. In DO 49 last November, it has prohibited teachers from communicating with learners outside of the school setting and airing out our concerns in public. What’s next, an open declaration of Martial Law in DepEd?" said Vladimer Quetua, ACT chairperson.
"How can discouraging teachers from rendering community service be ‘empowering’? The agency is not setting a good example here," Quetua said.
DepEd also said it is "imperative" to issue the order to ensure teachers are not burdened with non-work-related matters.
Quetua said that teachers were given the "moral obligation to encourage and initiate community involvement and service" based on Republic Act 7836 or the Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers.
The DepEd order is also "detrimental to the teachers’ exercise of their freedom of association," Quetua added.
"Ironically, the DepEd said that the order is meant to ease the burdens of teachers when, in fact, it is teaching overload, large classes and non-teaching duties that overwork our teachers. The agency should focus on resolving these problems if it is really concerned with our well-being," Quetua said.
The DepEd and the ACT have been trading barbs all week on various topics, inlcuding a call by the teachers' group to hire more teachers and build more classrooms.