By Dennis D. Estopace & VG Cabuag
Conclusion
THIS country has always relied upon teachers to get things across: across mountains to teach under trees; across a phalanx of goons to protect ballot boxes; and crossing out misfits, some of whom, unfortunately, become government officials.
Not a few teachers have been placed on the cross—killed in the name of a “New Society.” Many would become jobless in the name of reform in the education system, popularly known as the K to 12 Program.
A Commission on Higher Education (CHED) report, titled “Investing in the Future of Higher Education,” admitted that the K to 12 tack, “the flagship education-reform program of the Aquino administration,” would affect the employment status of teachers and nonteaching personnel. Such would
occur because of reduced enrollments in higher-education institutions (HEIs) for five years, from 2016 to 2021.
According to the CHED report, about 19.8 percent, or 11,456, of a total 57,718 permanent and non-permanent nonteaching staff in HEIs would be “displaced.”
The CHED report also revealed that a total of 13,634 permanent and nonpermanent teaching staff would be “displaced” from employment. This figure is about 12.4 percent of the total 109,896 teaching staff in HEIs.
Some of them are in Miriam College. And some have already felt the brunt of the impact of the K to 12, even before Republic Act 10533, or The Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, was signed into law in 2013.
Road to Calvary
DOCUMENTS provided by the Miriam College Faculty Association (CFA) bared the Catholic HEI has prepared for the K to 12 Program beginning 2011.
“Miriam College has been studying the impact of K to 12, as well as identifying and trying out options to address its adverse effects, particularly on our faculty who teach GE [general-education] subjects,” a statement by the HEI said.
In July of the succeeding year, the college’s Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) Glenda Fortez appointed Rebecca T. Añonuevo to head a committee focused on GE. Documents provided by the CFA said this committee was tasked to create the course content of new GE courses under the K to 12 Program. The committee bared its report on the scenarios under the K to 12 Program by September 2012.
The GE curriculum, to note, was already 16 years old that time, as this component of higher academic program was created in 1996 by the CHED. The other component is the Professional Education Curriculum.
In 1996 the CHED issued Memorandum Circular 59, which set the minimum requirements for the mandatory GE Curriculum (GEC) for undergraduate degrees to 63 units. A subsequent MC, No. 4, in 1997 ordered an alternative curriculum (GEC-B) that reduced the minimum requirements to 51 units, from the 63 units classified as GEC-A.
By March 2014, the CHED released a new GEC covering 24 units of core courses, nine units of electives and three units of Life of Rizal, a subject mandated by the Rizal law. This move by the CHED reduced the total units of GEC-A courses by about half (36 units).
The reduction in the number of units would lead to the displacement of an estimated 25,090 workers—teaching and nonteaching staff of HEIs—according to the CHED.
Mitigating impact
THE implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of RA 10533 has acknowledged the “potential reduction or absence of college graduates to meet the human-resource requirements of industry.”
The reduction would be seen in the decrease or loss of students applying as freshmen in HEIs.
Section 31 of the IRR also noted the need to ensure “the sustainability of the private and public educational institutions, and the promotion and protection of the rights, interests and welfare of teaching and nonteaching personnel.”
Documents provided by the Miriam CFA showed the association already proposed to VPAA Fortez as early as January 2014 some options the college can take to ease the impact of the K to 12 Program on the institution’s personnel. The proposals included options for professors and instructors to implement a variety of training programs, continue further studies, conduct research or go on sabbatical while Miriam College is in transition under the K to 12 Program.
By June of that year, the office of the Miriam College VPAA organized a seminar-workshop on the new GEC. Permanent Miriam College faculty members from the GE and program rosters, or those teaching major subjects, participated in the development of course contents for the new GE courses.
Letting go
SIX days after the seminar workshop in 2014, the Miriam College administration team, led by its president, Rosario O. Lapus, announced the mandatory Early Separation Program (ESP) for all GE faculty, including those teaching Physical Education, Theology and Social Sciences.
The CHED has deemed Theology and History—taught by Social Sciences teachers—as not classified as GE subjects. To note, Theology is at the core of Miriam education.
A memo from Lapus in October 2014 revealed plans to “house the new campus for senior high-school program and pioneering industries” in Porac, Pampanga.
The memo also cited Miriam College would explore opportunities and strategic partnerships with Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), the Quezon City local government and the Carlos Palanca Foundation Inc. It was also this year when Miriam College opened a campus in Nuvali, an ALI property in Santa Rosa, Laguna.
It was during this year the retrenchment was announced.
According to a statement by the Miriam College, those who would avail themselves of the severance package, or the ESP for school year 2014 to 2015 would each receive 110 to 120 percent “of a month’s pay for every year of credited service, based on average unit load from date of hire to date of separation.”
The school also threw in scholarship for children studying at Miriam College for school years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
For the next school year, in 2015 and 2016, when all identified professors and instructors are fully retrenched, each teacher would receive 80 percent or 100 percent the monthly equivalent of their respective salary for every year of service. Teachers were also offered the option to re-engage as part-time teachers.
“After the implementation of the program, the faculty may opt to apply for teaching in senior high school; apply for part-time teaching at the college; and engage in research and training projects, when enrollment would have stabilized,” the Miriam College said in a statement.
Separation blues
IN a statement, the Miriam CFA said it attempted and initiated dialogues with the administration to clarify, among other issues, the criteria used for the early separation program, as there are GE faculty members who were not included on the list.
The CFA said some of these faculty members include those who have term administrative assignments, such as the Registrar, the Language Learning Center program officer and the associate dean for Student Affairs.
Miriam administrators insisted that the criteria they used was nondiscriminatory, and that the retrenchment program would be enforced.
Seven teachers took the severance package in January last year. Three of them accepted the reengagement offer, and one was hired on a contractual basis as an information-technology staff, documents provided by the Miriam CFA showed.
Last year Miriam College announced it will let go 30 of its tenured, or permanent, faculty members, including those teaching Theology and Social Sciences. Five of them are English teachers, including Añonuevo, who has taught at Miriam College for two decades and the president of the CFA.
“The school designed the separation package for affected faculty so that it would be generous enough to help them during the difficult phase of transition,” Miriam College Board of Trustees Chairman Josefina N. Tan said in an April 4 letter to Añonuevo.
Packages offered
IN April some members of the Miriam College faculty teaching GE were asked if they are willing to be nominated for a CHED grant offered to teachers who will be affected by the K to 12 Program. The said grant will come from the CHED transition fund giving scholarship assistance only for tenured faculty members.
The same faculty members were asked if they are going to reengage, since such status is required for them to be nominated for the CHED grant.
According to the CHED report released last year, the “development grants” are only for retained personnel. These grants, the CHED report said, will allow HEI faculty and staff to have “lighter workloads during the K to 12 transition period [from 2016 to 2021].”
Called “development packages,” the CHED said these include development grants for faculty and staff, innovative grants for institutions and scholarships for graduate studies.
“Of the retained, there are 38,841 full-time faculty who are 19 to 47 years old, and are thus possible candidates for scholarships,” the CHED report said.
The CHED also aims to send 7,921 faculty for Masters degrees and 6,853 for Doctorate in Philosophy degrees.
Of the 23 remaining teachers of Miriam College, two were due for actual retirement having reached the age of 65 years. So far, a dozen of the remaining teachers have taken the offer of early separation. The other nine have yet to take the package. These teachers were given letters notifying them of retrenchment effective June 13.
Teachers teach
AÑONUEVO has filed a complaint of illegal termination and nonpayment of wages and benefits for June and July 2016 against Miriam College.
Last year she was slapped with a libel case filed by Ma. Concepcion Lupisan, officer in charge of the Miriam College Finance Department. The libel case came after Lapus, during a meeting, warned Añonuevo and CFA members not to involve students and the media as Miriam College tackled the future of its personnel.
Tan, who is also president of BDO Private Bank Inc., reminded Añonuevo in her letter: “While we respect freedom of expression, we demand that all future discourse be civil and constructive.”
Meanwhile, the college has hired part-time faculty to teach GE subjects, including English, Literature Filipino, History, Rizal and Math for the summer classes, which began in the middle of the month.
This year would be the second that Miriam College begins its new school-year calendar starting August. The school has appointed a new dean for its College of Arts and Sciences.
An educator of a Catholic HEI told the BusinessMirror the experience of Miriam College faculty is shared by five other HEIs.
Like Miriam College, the person familiar with the CHED implementation of the K to 12 Program said these schools expect a drastic drop in enrollment, which would continue for the next five years.
This country has been kind to teachers since 500 American teachers onboard the USA Thomas arrived more than a century ago on Manila Bay on August 21, 1901.
With the K to 12 Program, that kindness is being put to a test, a crucible that can make or break the future work force badly needed for the growth of industries and, hopefully, the Philippine economy.
Image credits: Roy Domingo