By Ika Gentugaya

By Jelena Villorente

The light of one’s learning years will inevitably fall back to those who shaped them — the educators that built the greatest and forged the strongest as we know them today. 

Schools and institutions pride themselves on the teachers, filling faculty walls and coloring the classrooms they enter and exit, and it is why we find ourselves celebrating these individuals every October in cognizance of the passion they carry in providing empowerment through education. 

Teachers serve as our primary educators, not only bestowing upon us knowledge, but also enabling us to hone our capabilities and develop our learnings to face the bigger world. They serve as our nurturers, so often referred to as our second parents as they play a profound role in carving not only our educational foundation, but also our moral paradigms alongside our own parents. 

In the greater scheme of things, teachers are pivotal figures in our lives, living up to a vocation that extends beyond mere classrooms and offices. This service, however, ostensibly tends to be an oversight in society, as the workforce of educators continue to suffer the challenges that come at the expense of their passion. Encompassing a plethora of issues that correlate with insufficient support, it is easy to view teachers as strongholds that operate in spite of their crumbling foundations.

At the end of the day, it is crucial that the struggles of these teachers be acknowledged beyond the four vivid walls defining the very cynosure of their vocation. Celebrating World Teachers’ Day is more than just appreciating our formators — it is saluting the conviction of their passions and recognizing the persistence they harbor in the face of these difficult obstacles.

A Struggling Pedagogy

From the very beginning up to the very end of our education, teachers are a constant presence, greatly weaving into our lives as students and imparting upon us knowledge that spans across their fields of interest. We wouldn’t have been able to read and write, to add and subtract, to comprehend problems, and fathom the world around us if not for the teachers who are unflagging in their lives’ noble work.

While it is to these very individuals that we may attribute the acquisition of our knowledge’s foundations, it is only reasonable that they are supported a great deal — yet in the Philippines, reality is not the case, and teachers continue to undergo systematic problems that undermine their worth and capabilities as critical contributors to the educational sector and the holistic formation of the youth.

One pervasive issue being faced by teachers is insufficient salary. For instance, public school teachers are able to earn at least P30,024 per month according to amended salary rates, which is largely inadequate if these teachers are providing for people other than themselves at home. In addition, according to IBON Foundation, a family of five seeking to live a decent enough life in the Philippines is recommended to earn over P1,200 per day — and with the current standing of teachers’ wages, comfort and stability remain greatly elusive.

This fact alone presents a stark disparity in how teachers are valued in Philippine society, especially as keystone figures in defining the quality of education here in the country. People choose to be teachers in the Philippines most definitely not for the salary offer, and while it is noble that they harbor a face of resilience, it is crucial that we fathom how underfunded their hard work remains.

Another concern is the limited support being accumulated for the educational sector of the Philippines — an umbrella issue in itself carrying its own set of intertwined issues that tie to various factors. For one, public education presents the lack of ample resources and facilities to fortify the education being provided for the students and only provides a repository of worn-out and obsolete textbooks, low quality devices and technology, and others. This situation hampers teaching as it confines the teachers to make do with what resources are available, perpetuating a culture of ineffective teaching and learning.

To compound to this concern, the educational sector also suffers from an inefficacious curriculum, presenting a flux of topics, lessons, and subjects that contribute to burnout and stress within educators. This was recognized back in 2023, when Vice President Sara Duterte still served as the Education Secretary, when the Department of Education sought to revise the K-12 curriculum and decongest its contents.

This brought forth the MATATAG curriculum, which is currently in rollout as it continues to take into consideration not only the cognitive abilities of students, but also the piling workload of teachers meeting learning demands. While this new system is still in its infancy, it is in the educational sector’s best hopes that pedagogical concerns are addressed and ameliorated as time goes on.

One other systematic issue for teachers is slow career growth and promotion in comparison to other companies. This poses lagging increases in salaries, exacerbating present challenges being experienced by teachers. Being promoted from Teacher I to Teacher III takes around 15 years for the average Filipino public school teacher, illustrating the struggle for these educators to climb up two levels in their own career. Even worse, moving up from Teacher III to Master Teacher I takes around 11-20 years, underlining this slow-paced system and discouraging teachers from remaining in their career.

This lagging progression in the teaching career penetrates deeper than just discouragement, however — it defines how this very profession continues to be problematic. For one, the sluggish growth presents a slow rise in salary, especially for teachers who plan to remain in the job for a long time. As mentioned prior, the low wages do little to compensate for the tedious effort being put in by these teachers day after day, especially for those working to sustain families of their own.

Another effect is also the glaring disparity presented by this slow progression in comparison to the years of basic education. The 15 years meant for a teacher to move up from Teacher I to Teacher III is the same number of years a student is able to course through the whole K-12 system — highlighting the prolonged nature of this field.

While these scrub only the surface of the structural concerns tainting the teaching profession, a noteworthy point to consider is that these are profoundly exacerbated by the shame surrounding the job itself. Being a teacher in the Philippines almost immediately garners you odd looks and perplexed gestures, as the career carries an unfavorable reputation — stemming from the fact that these aforementioned issues greatly contribute to the way this job is perceived in the country. 

Ultimately, this illustrates the unfortunate fact that while it is irrefutable that teachers play a crucial role in nurturing young minds and shaping the educational sector in the country, they still inevitably carry an ill repute — generally discouraging many from pursuing the career in the first place as a result.

In the end, these concerns amalgamate to paint the current picture of the Philippine pedagogical paradigm — a system that is flawed and continues to hamper the potential of teachers within our country. The fact that these issues are still being proliferated today imply the lack of exigence they seem to pose, especially in the eyes of the government when other more glaring problems are taking center stage even if this issue is a relatively long-established one for the educational sector.

Nevertheless,  it is starkly evident that these very issues penetrate much deeper than what can be externally perceived on the surface amongst the teachers we encounter every day — and it is a great understatement to say that these educators have it better than we students do.  At the end of the day, they deal with not only the routine of coming to class every day, but also the practice of tailoring lesson plans, keeping up with the curriculum’s demands, and coping with such little reward for the strenuous effort they exert.

It is saddening to know that teachers remain undervalued in the Philippines, even whilst fully aware that these educators are largely the reason we are able to fathom concepts, think critically, and learn throughout the course of everyday life. Combating this harsh reality means recognizing the systematic roots that each problem stems from — and taking the time to appreciate the grit, the mettle, and the patience of the teachers who continue to forge us unflaggingly. 

Valuing Dedicated Passion

As the country continues to pace itself in realigning its educational sector, what remains a definite non-negotiable aside from student well-being is pedagogical support — especially in the unwavering pursuit of quality education.

With the month of October settling in and Teachers’ Day  making its indelible mark, we are reminded that our teachers need more of our appreciation, not only for the passion they carry but also for the perseverance they possess amidst the struggles lacing the teaching profession in the Philippines. It is imperative that we learn to empathize with our educators, even more so in cognizance of the challenges they face each day.

In the Atenean context, Duffy-Delaney Day enables us to do just that — to show our care for our formators as they’ve coursed through their own set of difficulties in pursuit of well-rounded education for us ASHS students. This celebration allows us to acknowledge these figures of service, and to express our gratitude for the Magis they continue to personify with each academic day.

After all this, however, may we be reminded that our acts of care and appreciation are not meant to be restricted to those mere 24 hours — and that our valuing our teachers must be present all the time, routinely as the practice of greeting them a “good morning” every day. 

Ultimately, while the choice of whether or not we carry our learnings beyond the classroom remains within us pupils, let us also take into account what our teachers go through behind the board all for the sake of pursuing their collective passion — and most importantly, for the sake of shaping the future by means of dedicated teaching.