An expert on Friday pushed for better support for teachers’ well-being as incidents of school-related violence place additional workplace pressure on educators.
“In the past, students were afraid of teachers. Today, the teachers are afraid of students,” Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines, Inc. (ACCUP) Executive Director Milabel E. Ho said in her speech at the 2026 Southeast Asian Teachers’ Month Celebration.
“That calls for real actions, real attention, and real meditation because this is something that is embracing us today and that is a very dangerous challenge,” she added.
In her presentation, Ms. Ho noted that the surge in cases of school violence has pushed teachers to go beyond simply educating their students as they take on the role of protecting the learners’ lives during threats.
“In campus shooting incidents globally, teachers often react instinctively to shield their students, placing themselves directly between the shooter and learners,” she said.
“Beyond indiscriminate school violence, teachers are increasingly targeted directly on campus premises by individuals carrying personal grievances, obsession, or mental health crises,” she added.
Three fatal campus shootings have occurred in the Philippines since June, killing at least eight individuals and wounding several others. All of the shooters involved in the incidents were allegedly underage and had access to their relatives’ firearms.
As the school incidents continue to rise nationwide, the Department of Education (DepEd) urged educators to act as “foster parents” by providing students with emotional and mental health support.
“For those who are very susceptible to influence from whatever they see online, and those who are looking for validation from their families but perhaps do not receive it, let us give them that as their foster parents at school,” Education Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara previously said in a news release.
The pressure of maintaining a safe learning environment and equipping the students with adequate knowledge, while balancing their personal lives, has put teachers’ well-being at risk.
“Teachers’ well-being is not a peripheral luxury; it is a core structural prerequisite for learning outcomes,” Ms. Ho said. “A stressed, burnt-out mind unconsciously triggers anxiety in learners.”
The ACCUP official added that a ‘nursing approach’ to teachers’ well-being will help protect their ‘flame of vocation’. This approach includes physiological care such as fatigue management and preventive exams; psychological care such as trauma-informed debriefing; and environmental care such as reduced workload.
“When schools apply nursing model of health promotion to faculty care, well-being stops being an abstract concept and becomes a measurable, daily standard that empowers teachers to inspire learning,” Ms. Ho said.
“Supporting the educator protects the caregiver and strengthens the learning environment,” she added.
Teachers remain the largest group of licensed professionals in the country, with 2,349,734 registered individuals as of January 2026, according to data from the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). — Almira Louise S. Martinez
School violence prompts calls for teachers’ well-being support
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