Manila, Philippines: The Department of Education (DepEd) removed certain administrative tasks of teachers, as part of Vice President Sara Duterte’s Matatag education agenda.

According to Department Order 002-2024 issued on Friday and signed by Duterte, administrative tasks, such as personnel administration, property and physical facilities custodianship, general administrative support, financial management, records management, and program management are now removed from the workload of teachers “without prejudice to the teacher ancillary tasks as defined by other DepEd issuances,

“Accordingly, School Heads and non-teaching personnel shall have the sole responsibility to perform the administrative tasks [that were enumerated],” the order read.

“School division offices may cluster deployed non-teaching personnel in accordance with the deployment parameters of the Bureau of Human Resources and Organizational Development or hire contract of service or job order personnel charged either against their Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses or other alternative sources of funding to augment personnel requirement in schools,” it said.

According to the same order, as part of the transition, “schools without existing or sufficient non teaching personnel may be clustered by school division offices within a period not exceeding 60 days, with each cluster composed of a maximum of three schools.”

School division offices must also “deploy administrative support personnel to perform administrative tasks for the clustered schools, and transfer existing administrative tasks for the clustered schools,” it said.

“This DepEd Order (DO) is guided by agency directions to remove the non teaching tasks of teachers to give support to teachers to teach better. This is geared toward building a conducive environment for effective teaching and learning to thrive,” Duterte said.

The order took effect immediately upon its approval, issuance, and publication on the DepEd website.