Compensation for volunteer teachers pushed

City officials earnestly encouraged the Department of Education – City Schools Division to allocate funds for the para-teachers who are rendering their voluntary services in various schools in the city to serve as their compensation for such services rendered during the prevailing difficult times to allow the children to cope up with the implementation of blended learning.

Under Resolution No. 631, series of 2021, local legislators stated that serving as a para-teacher or school volunteer entails time and competencies fit to the assigned job at hand geared towards the realization of the desired result, especially during the prevailing difficult times aggravated by6 the ongoing Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 pandemic.

The council pointed out that concerned government agencies such as the education department should see the appropriate ways and means how to reciprocate the commendable efforts and contributions of the volunteer personnel who are willing to sacrifice time, effort and resources to ensure that the implementation of blended learning will be successful.

The body asserted the need for the education department to extract legal measures and remedies on how it could provide honorarium to all para-teachers who would pass the qualifications and requirements that will be established and set for the said purpose.

According to the council, para-teachers are also called learning support aides (LSAs) by the education department as they are able to qualify in assisting teachers to provide learning opportunities using various learning delivery modalities in promoting achievement and progression of learners, especially admitting the ongoing pandemic.

The council admitted that the education sector is one of the most affected sectors because of the ongoing world health crisis that paved the way for the crafting and eventual implementation of the hybrid learning system as an alternative for the conventional face to face or in-person learning system which had been practiced for centuries.

Earlier, the education department opened the idea of hiring para-teachers to assist and provide administrative support to the agency to help facilitating lessons for students outside the classroom, especially for those learners whose parents are not capable of monitoring and guiding their children in the new learning set up that was established to allow the continuous education of the children despite the ongoing pandemic.

The council passed Resolution NO. 420, series of 2020 that encouraged the education department to consider hiring para-teachers giving higher preference to those retrenched or laid off personnel due to the adverse effect of the COVID-19 pandemic from private schools and those unemployed graduates of education courses in the implementation of the blended learning system.

The council underscored that hiring para-teachers has a pronged purpose which is to make sure that there is enough work force to assist all the learners with their appropriate learning modality and to provide employment opportunities by giving higher preference to local talents whose employment from private schools had been disrupted due to the COVID-19 and to those graduates of education who are available for services and possible employment. – Dexter A. See