QC to form ‘teacher’s circle’

MANILA, Philippines - The Quezon City division of city schools (QCDCS) plans to form a “teachers’ circle” to promote close ties among schoolteachers in public elementary and high schools and improve their teaching skills, an official said yesterday.

In a report to Mayor Herbert Bautista during a regular executive meeting at the QC Hall, assistant school division  superintendent Helen Grace Go said that aside from continuous in-service training for teachers, the QCDCS is planning to establish a “teacher quality circle” to enable the teachers to assist and help themselves on how lessons could be better taught to students, and help themselves on strategies and techniques in teaching.

“At the same time, there will also be a critique circle that would judge or assess their members, thus there will be room for improvement in every aspect,” Go said.

She said that despite the fact that QCDCS has a continuous improvement program for teachers, a circle would be more effective in achieving a common goal of having a better educational program and system.

The division, she said, is also planning to decongest classes, which at present usually have 60 to 100 students, in order to better understand teacher’s lectures.

To date, Quezon City’s public elementary and high schools have a total enrollment of 440,000.

The QCDCS, she said, will intensify the reading and numeracy program to improve students’ ratings in the National Achievement Test.

She explained that they found out that many students nowadays have a reading problem – either being non-readers or frustrated readers – the reason why these students could not answer test questions correctly.

Go also appealed to the city government to help QCDCS in its plan to improve teachers, students and teaching programs in all the city’s public and elementary schools.