‘4-day workweek damaging to education’

MANILA, Philippines -  The Federation of Associations of Private Schools and Administrators (FAPSA) on Tuesday urged lawmakers to exclude basic education personnel, including teachers, in the proposed four-day workweek.

FAPSA president Eleazardo Kasilag said the proposal “is very damaging to education.”

“If the Senate shall approve this four-day workweek, it should exclude teachers and personnel in basic education,” Kasilag said in a statement.

“Remember, our work is mental and class work is cerebral. That is too impractical,” he said.

The proposal calls for extended work periods for teachers. Commenting on this, Kasilag said, “They are not machines; if their energy weakens, there is no absorption of lesson. Students can only take so much.”

Kasilag noted that the school calendar is different from the regular one.

“If you deduct Saturdays and Sundays, summer months, the 20-day buffer allowed by (the Department of Education) for school activities and including the 52 days (Fridays) that will be taken off as suggested, then you shall only have 128 days or 26 weeks in our school calendar out of the 52 weeks or half a year (when) students shall only be out of school,” he explained.

Kasilag believes the proposal is applicable only to teachers in the tertiary level.

“The proposal may even be sound to collegiate or higher education as classes are held three times a week per subject, but not to basic education because subjects are given daily for the whole week,” Kasilag argued.

“What decent learning can happen in such an emasculated time?” he asked.

House Bill 5068, which seeks to reduce the number of working days in a week, has passed the committee level at the House of Representatives.

Under the proposed law, laborers may have to work for only four or five days a week, instead of the current maximum of six days a week under Presidential Decree 442 or the Labor Code.

The number of normal working hours shall remain at 48 hours, or eight hours a day, which will be “compressed” into these days.