DepEd to ensure ‘safe’ working environment for personnel amid COVID-19 crisis
Published May 15, 2020, 3:37 PM
As it prepares for the opening classes in August, the Department of Education (DepEd) assured that it will ensure a safe environment not only for learners but also for its teaching and non-teaching personnel.
After declaring the formal opening of classes on August 24, Education Secretary Leonor Briones also announced that teachers and non-teaching personnel shall render service this coming June 1, upon completion of summer vacation last May 31.
“They will attend orientation and training activities on the utilization of the distance learning delivery modalities, prepare instructional materials, and plan the organization of classes in consideration of the learning delivery modalities to be employed,” Briones said.
Meanwhile, Briones clarified that if skeleton workforce will still be the operative government guidelines by June, DepEd will “issue the appropriate alternative work arrangements guidelines to the field to comply with prevailing policy” to ensure the safe work environment for its personnel.
Work arrangements for ‘high-risk’ personnel to decided at school level
For teachers and personnel who may be at a “higher risk” of contracting COVID-19 due to their existing medical conditions such as high blood, diabetes, or even those who are pregnant, Briones said that the appropriate work arrangements should be discussed at the school level, particularly with the school principals.
“These are in individual cases which should be taken cared of at the level of the school because the school officials know the conditions of their teachers and personnel,” Briones said.
Currently, Briones noted that school personnel “more or less they take care of each other.” At the level of DepEd, if there are teachers who really are injured or need assistance in life of duty, “then we do our best, we try to also generate help from outside.”
In many instances, Briones said that incidents involving teachers and personnel are already addressed at the level of the school or the level of the Region.
“I hope this is something that we don’t lose just because we are dealing with the ‘new normal’,” she explained. “The ‘new normal’ that we should have would have to be an even more humane ‘new normal’,” she ended.
