MANILA (August 3) — The Department of Education (DepEd) says it has cut teachers’ paperwork by 57 percent. But for many educators, the bigger problem is not just the forms — it is everything else they are still being asked to do.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara said the reduction is meant to protect what he calls the most important resource in schools: teachers’ time with their students.
“Ang puno’t dulo nitong lahat ng mga reporma is to focus on teaching time, to get back to teaching time. Sagrado ang teaching time,” Angara said in an interview with DZRH.
The figure sounds substantial. DepEd had earlier identified 174 required school forms and said the reforms would eliminate or streamline about 57 percent of them.
But cutting forms does not automatically cut workload.
Teachers continue to be tapped for government programs and school-based services ranging from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and feeding initiatives to vaccination activities and other community programs.
And new academic interventions can create new demands.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), for instance, recently warned that the rollout of DepEd’s Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) program was adding pressure on teachers despite earlier assurances that the initiative would not increase their workload.
That exposes the central weakness in DepEd’s workload reform: removing administrative tasks from paper does little if schools continue transferring new responsibilities to teachers.
The staffing gap remains
DepEd is trying to address the problem by bringing in more non-teaching personnel. The Department of Budget and Management approved 22,268 new non-teaching positions for 2026, including personnel intended to take operational and administrative work away from teachers.
That is a significant intervention — but it also raises a basic question: Why did teachers have to carry so much non-teaching work in the first place?
The answer lies partly in the chronic staffing pressures inside public schools.
ACT has pointed to a teacher shortage estimated at around 145,000, arguing that more than 32,000 new teaching positions approved for School Year 2026–2027 will still fall far short of the gap.
Recent ACT data cited in June also showed 70 percent of public school teachers handling six or more teaching loads, while 75 percent were managing classes of 31 to 50 learners.
In that environment, even a major paperwork reduction can be swallowed up by overcrowded classrooms, additional programs and staffing shortages.
From paperwork to workload
DepEd has acknowledged that the issue is also about teacher welfare.
“It’s a wellness issue rin for our teachers,” Angara said. “Let’s take care of our teachers. Let’s make sure may oras din sila.”
But teacher wellness cannot be reduced to fewer forms.
The Congressional Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) has found that teachers in many schools continue to work long hours and perform administrative duties despite workload-reduction policies. It also warned that existing administrative support remains insufficient, leaving some work to fall back on teachers.
That is the uncomfortable gap between policy and classroom reality.
DepEd can count forms deleted. Teachers count hours lost.
And the latter is the more important number.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers has repeatedly argued that educators are being stretched beyond their core teaching responsibilities.
“You cannot expect quality education when teachers are stretched beyond their training, forced into multiple roles, and deprived of adequate support,” ACT Chairperson Ruby Bernardo said.
“Overwork has been normalized, but it is fundamentally unsustainable,” she added.
The 57-percent reduction should therefore be treated as a starting point, not proof that the workload crisis has been solved.
The real test is whether teachers are spending less time chasing reports, coordinating government programs, filling staffing gaps and absorbing new assignments — and more time preparing lessons, assessing students and actually teaching.
Because a teacher freed from 57 percent of the paperwork is not necessarily a teacher freed from overwork.
Until schools have enough teachers and adequate non-teaching staff to absorb the work, the danger is that DepEd will succeed in reducing paperwork on paper while leaving the heavier burden where it has always been:
on the teacher standing in front of the classroom.
