AS THE education sector gears towards physically returning to school and offices in the coming days, are there essential health measures to guarantee the safety of teachers and staff?
Starting June 22, education workers will be required to physically report to work in various means and set-up as allowed by the Civil Service Commission and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The Department of Education issued Order No. 11 on alternative work arrangements amid the state of national emergency due to COVID-19. But it seems sorely lacking on concrete health measures to warrant safe and viable return to schools and offices. DepEd should use the days leading up to Monday next week to administer health screening of teachers and staff by health professionals to identify who among its employees are fit to report on-site and who needs to be quarantined before being allowed to come to school or office. From this, DepEd will then be able to facilitate systematic mass testing among suspected cases and close contacts, aside from those belonging to vulnerable populations (i.e., senior citizen, pregnant individuals, and/or with pre-existing conditions).
Even businesses instituted systematic testing of its workers as required by the government. It’s a shame that DepEd, with one of the largest public workforces, is not including this crucial measure —implored by no less than the World Health Organization — in its back-to-work guidelines.
Other glaring absences of provisions for health and safety essentials include the distribution of facemasks, personal protective equipment (PPE), and hygiene kits to employees; ensuring of health personnel and facility (i.e., nurse and clinic per school) at the school level; and sanitation and disinfection equipment and personnel.
There is also the lack of sick leave provisions for teachers even in the face of a global health crisis. Unlike all other government employees, teachers have zero sick leave credits. This puts them in a highly vulnerable situation especially during a pandemic as they run the risk of getting salary deductions if they contract COVID-19 and the provided 14-day COVID-related excused absences were used up.
There seems to be an absence, too, of agency accountability and support for treatment of teachers and employees who may be infected with COVID-19 in the disposal of their duties. This failure to institute basic health and safety requisites makes for a precarious work arrangement. Yet DepEd seems to elude accountability.
The burden of making return to work safe and viable is on the government, not on individual capacities and resourcefulness of education workers, nor on private stakeholders.
