Education unions call for workers participation in covid plans of private schools

A coalition of unions of faculty and staff in the private school sector is calling for workers participation in the covid-related plans of private schools with the looming start of online classes.

 

CoTeSCUP lead convenor Rene Tadle said that "School administrators often renege on their constitutionally-mandated obligation to include labor unions in the decision-making process for school policies, especially with regard to adjustments due to the pandemic. This is one of the root causes of the confusion and dilemma experienced by the employees, despite union officers exerting all efforts to communicate with management to include them in crafting policy."

 

Tadle spoke at a Senate hearing yesterday on pending bills about online classes and assistance to private schools. He raised concerns about pedagogy such as online class size and labor grievances like retrenchments of faculty and staff. CoTeSCUP supports state aid to private education but insists that it must be conditional on a no-layoff commitment from school administration.

 

Tadle expressed apprehension about the looming retrenchment and wage cuts in the education industry. He said that “While we understand the adversities faced by administration in the private colleges and universities, we are nonetheless concerned at actual and threatened retrenchments of employees, reduction of wages and benefits, denigration of job security and lack of worker voice in the policies being crafted. Indeed private schools will incur losses due to the impact of covid. But these losses are not substantial as to cause any potential risk of financial distress, unless management can prove otherwise through an objective assessment of its financial condition.”

 

Meanwhile a youth and student group expressed solidarity with CoTeSCUP’s appeal. Jonel Labrador, coordinator of Partido Manggagawa-Kabataan declared that “We are one with teachers and staff of private colleges and universities in their demand for voice and protection. Similar to private school employees, students are also not being heard, including alarm at the continued imposition of internet, laboratory and electricity and lab fees. Thus we doubt the narrative that private schools need to shed jobs because they are in financial distress.” PM-Kabataan is the youth wing of the labor group Partido Manggagawa.

 

CoTeSCUP recently sent letters and position papers to the Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Labor and Employment, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education and the Inter Agency Task Force asking for government intervention in the education sector amidst growing concerns regarding policies and readjustments to be implemented in the upcoming opening of classes.

 

CoTeSCUP is a coalition which consists of the Faculty Association of MAPUA Institute of Technology, Siliman University Faculty Association, Lyceum Faculty Association, Far Eastern University Faculty Association, Inc., Centro Escolar University Faculty and Allied Workers Union, St. Paul University-Manila Faculty Union, Union of Faculty and Employees of Saint Louis University, College Faculty Independent Union, University of San Carlos, Mapua Institute of Technology Labor Union; San Beda College Alabang Employees Association, Faculty Association of DLSU Dasmarinas Inc., De La Salle University Employee Association Union, De La Salle Zobel Staff Organization, and De La Salle Araneta Faculty Society.

August 6, 2020

Contact: Prof. Rene Tadle

Lead Convenor, CoTeSCUP

0977-742-4120

Open classes when truly safe, other modalities must be made universally accessible

Photo from NY Times

With the country’s PCR-based mass testing capacity not even available to all our workers, opening our schools this coming August is not only unsafe for our children but will also be very costly when alternative learning modalities are applied. The case of infected South Korean students and our own poor pandemic response raise many red flags on this issue.  

First, on mass testing. Without the vaccine and our mass testing capacity stuck at minimal level, sending their children to school is a choice which is exceedingly difficult to decide for poor families who cannot even get free mass testing and adequate subsidies to secure their own health and economic survival at home. On the other hand, not enrolling when schools officially open in August places unnecessary pressure on both parents and students whose dreams of getting out of the poverty trap the soonest time possible through education remain high despite the pandemic.

Second, on transportation. The government did not even make provisions of shuttle services for their employees mandatory to all employers. Students from poor families rely on public transport and we see them battered daily by the violence of our mass transportation system. Adjusting to the new and reduced capacity of our mass transport system will further expose children and their mothers to more hazards. On the other hand, requiring them to be shuttled by service vehicles which rates are more expensive is too much of a burden for parents whose economic future are threatened by manifold crises due to this pandemic.

Third, on the physical setup. Our overcrowded schools need to be re-modelled first to ensure physical distancing and we have not yet seen any plan on how to do this in the remaining few weeks. Will it mean dividing the number of sections and classes and therefore extending the working hours of our teachers?

Fourth, on alternative learning modalities. E-learning or distance learning is a sound idea as long as the infrastructure for it is ready and universally accessible to all students of all classes, public and private. In fact, the time for distance learning has come several years earlier than the pandemic but it did only serve a privileged class of students enrolled in high end universities.  Private schools may continue to offer this mode for capable students but for public schools, a universal online modality remains a wishful thinking at this point in time. To our knowledge, even our premier state university, the University of the Philippines, did not make online classes mandatory during the lockdown period because not all UP students and teachers have gadgets and access to reliable internet.

This online class divide can only be resolved if the state will provide free internet services to all barangays and online gadgets are made affordable to all households. Unfortunately, our national broadband capacity embedded in the power transmission lines is now under the control of the Chinese-run National Grid Corporation of the Philippines. To maximize its free use for educational purposes, the transmission system has to be re-nationalized, notwithstanding many other issues supporting the argument for its renationalization.

Education as a social good must be made universally accessible to all, including the new and advance systems of learning modalities. Otherwise, without system and infrastructure reforms, Philippine education in times of pandemics will stay as a model itself of social inequality that infected this nation for over a century now.

25 May 2020