EDITORIAL - In a confused state

There is a proposed bill pending in Congress that seeks to reduce by two hours -- from eight hours to six hours -- the actual teaching time of public school teachers. The reason is that the current actual teaching time of eight hours of public school teachers stresses them out into inefficiency and ineffectivity.

Unfortunately, the proposal offers no concrete proof or evidence that working beyond six hours actually stresses teachers, or any other working man for that matter, into inefficiency and ineffectivity. In fact, nothing can be farther from the truth than the rationale behind the proposal.

One only has to consider commercial airline pilots flying long-haul flights and the rationale behind the six-hour-work for teachers can be blown to pieces. A flight from Manila to the US can take between 11 to 13 hours, or double that proposed in the bill.

Yet no one has ever taken to question the capability of these commercial airline pilots to safely negotiate these long-haul flights. No one has ever suggested that these pilots might get stressed out into inefficiency or ineffectivity despite doing work that puts actual lives on the line.

The proposal to cut the teaching time of teachers to six hours should therefore be thrown out the window and not be allowed to see the light of day. Not only is it baseless, it also seeks to unnecessarily and undeservedly pamper a certain sector over the rest of  Filipinos who must do eight hours or even more.

Besides, reducing the teaching time of teachers will deal a big, and perhaps fatal, blow to Philippine education, already described as in a deteriorated state as it is. If you cannot make better products out of eight hours work, how much more if you put in only six hours to the job?

Compared to the output of the educational system today, the output of many decades in the past have been far better. Many of the great minds in the Philippines were produced by the system that was in place long ago, when teachers were superior and did not count the hours but made sure the quality was not compromised.

The proposal to cut teaching hours proves just how confused Filipinos have become. Here we are, adding two years to basic education in the so-called K to 12 Program because we think 10 years is not enough, and then cutting teaching time from eight hours to six because we think eight hours are too long and stressful. Duh?