Assessing Teachers Using Philippine Standards for Teachers

Teachers are catalysts of national development. With them, the nation is able to produce and develop learners, who may lead the country to development and progress. Enhancing teachers' quality and upholding quality teaching standards, therefore, should be given utmost importance for the long term and sustainable nation building. In the case of the Philippines, teachers' competence is assessed through Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST), a new framework that was adopted from its former paradigm, National Competency-Based Teacher Standards (NCBTS) through DepEd Order no. 42, s. 2017. This paper investigates the teaching competence of 160 teachers from Southern Luzon in the light of the tenets of PPST. Through the descriptive and quantitative method of data gathering, a researcher-made questionnaire following the Likert Scale was employed to collate the respondents' lived experiences relative to the seven domains of PPST. The investigation revealed that most of them assessed themselves as highly proficient in managing the learning environment and proficient only in coping up with learners' diversity. Hence, there is an identified gap in terms of the teachers' needs to improve learners' diversity management. Through the domains of the PPST, in sum, they considered themselves as proficient only. As a result, continued personal and institutional efforts are highly recommended to help teachers improve their competence in the profession and eventually the community at large.