Absent teacher

Too many school days are lost not only because of typhoons, floods, extreme heat and impromptu holidays.

Recently in my part of town, one class in a government-run kiddie school went on break for a week because the teacher had to attend to the funeral arrangements for a deceased relative.

Last Monday, there was still no class because the teacher called in sick. On Wednesday and Friday she was again absent because she reportedly had to attend meetings. A teacher in another class assigned the students who showed up on Wednesday a coloring assignment and then ended what should have been a two-hour class after just one hour. There was again no class on Friday.

Teachers are only human, and I can understand their need to attend to family emergencies or go on sick leave. But what about all those meetings that pull out teachers from their classes?

If such frequent class cancellations happened in a private school where parents pay tuition, the school could face demands for a refund or even a lawsuit.

In our public school system, unfortunately, it seems that free education has been equated with anything goes. Classes can be suspended at the drop of a hat and the quality can go to the dogs, and if parents complain, they might be told: it’s free, and you want quality? Ano kayo, siniswerti? (You should be so lucky!)

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The government should have a pool of substitute teachers to minimize disruptions in the academic calendar.

This goes for both the Department of Education (DepEd), which handles kindergarten to Grade 12 classes, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which runs the kiddie or playschools.

Kiddie schools are not merely meant for play, with teachers mainly glorified babysitters for busy parents. Playschool is offered during the most critical period in human learning, when the capacity for absorbing information and processing sensory stimuli is at its peak.

Educators should maximize the learning potential in early childhood by providing quality education beginning in playschool.

Children in wealthy households get an early start in expensive playschools, where teachers make learning fun – with emphasis on learning.

Kids from privileged families already have an edge over the poor beginning at conception, when they get all the nourishment that they need from their mothers.

The gap continues to widen as the kids grow up, with the wealthy children getting all the toys, educational gadgets and environment conducive to learning at home. Meanwhile, their underprivileged peers are hampered by physical and mental stunting from malnutrition, poor health care, and a home environment where a number of them may be exposed to domestic violence and abuse.

The education provided in DSWD-run kiddie schools should help narrow the learning gap between rich and poor. This cannot happen when classes are constantly suspended because the teacher is absent.

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Some years ago when I was on journalism apprenticeship with the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, one of my American homestay hosts was an editor whose wife was a substitute school teacher – meaning she was always on call to substitute for those who couldn’t make it to work in her subject area.

The DepEd and DSWD can maintain such a pool of part-time educators. The teachers will need training to meet certain qualifications for the job. Underemployment is high and I’m sure there are people who will want the additional work.

We know what the problem will likely be: funding.

The government’s go-to solution to underemployment is to have those looking for additional jobs line up for ayuda, handed out by an unctuous politician, to augment insufficient income.

Vice President Sara Duterte has been impeached partly on allegations that she misused DepEd funds when she headed the department.

But we must not lose track of the even bigger amount of P12 billion that senators and congressmen slashed from the 2025 budget of DepEd, even if it is now under new management.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara, a former senator himself, decided not to keep quiet. He publicly decried the P12-billion cut in the proposed budget of DepEd, which was meant for its digitalization program.

His complaint led to a token realignment of the budget, backed by a token presidential veto, with lawmakers lumping together all the educational institutions they could gather from other departments and putting these under the “education sector.”

Even with the creative fund juggling, the budget for the entire reworked education sector was still slightly lower than the appropriation for a single agency, the Department of Public Works and Highways, a favorite source of kickbacks and pork barrel-type projects of lawmakers.

This institutionalized plunder of people’s money now faces a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court. Whether the SC will rise to the occasion and save the nation from perdition is uncertain.

In the meantime, the ranks of stunted, undereducated Filipinos keep growing. It could take several generations before this national disaster can be fully reversed. This should be music to the ears of the political lowlifes whose personal and family fortunes thrive on the perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy and the ayuda economy.