Introduction

Teachers help students learn the academic basics, but they also teach valuable life lessons by
setting a positive example. As role models, teachers must follow a professional code of ethics.
This ensures that students receive a fair, honest and uncompromising education. A professional
code of ethics outlines teachers' main responsibilities to their students and defines their role in
students' lives. Above all, teachers must demonstrate integrity, impartiality and ethical behavior
in the classroom and in their conduct with parents and coworkers. It also help teachers create a
safe, productive, and positive learning environment in their teaching career. Teachers are
expected to maintain challenging expectations that will improve the potential of all learners
through meaningful and inclusive participation in the classroom, school, and community. The
Ethical Principles promote good relationships between teachers, students, and parents when
making educational decisions. In addition, this relationship between the students, the parents, and
the teachers, all parties can improve the teaching and learning activities and resources that will
help improve the outcome of the individual’s education.

Moreover, the Code of Ethics also challenges teachers to use current data and professional
knowledge to improve teaching and learning activities in the classroom. Keeping up with new
trends and current information, through professional development and continuing education,
allow teachers to do their best to each student.

CODE OF ETHICS FOR PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS IN THE PHILIPPINES

I. INTRODUCTION: The code of ethics for professional teachers is a set of well

stipulated laws mandating the members or as listed in the PRC’s rosters of teachers to behave in
accordance to its standards and regulations. As a matter of lexical definition, professional ethics
is a “systematic rules or principles governing right conduct. Each practitioner, upon entering
a profession, is invested with the responsibility to adhere to the standards of ethical
practice and conduct set by the profession” (Miller-Keane Encyclopaedia and Dictionary);
the same is adhered by teachers around the globe as they go about their teaching career, thus,
putting it as a worldwide schema of conducting oneself as a teacher; this is true even though
there are claims that the said “norms are informally defined and observed” (John M.
Braxton and Alan E. Bayer, 2003). In fact, there are many authoritative literatures both
online and in printed form that tackles the said, placing importance to its presence both as a
field of study and as a matter of practice, for instance; authors like Audi, R. (1994) and
Smith, D.C. (1996)tackles the ethics of teaching and its connection to the ideals of learning.
The importance to teachers to know and practice a set of ethical standards can be seen in the
article entitled “Ethics and the Law” which pictures how ethic plays a penalizing role to
teachers in the United States of America which reads: The education codes of many states
require that teachers be persons of good character. Most states also permit teachers to be
dismissed for unethical conduct. States also forbid particular forms of misconduct, such as child
abuse, sexual harassment, and drug abuse, and their violation may be grounds for dismissal.
What counts as good character or conduct can be a contentious matter. In past decades teachers
might have been dismissed not only for drunkenness, homosexuality, unwed pregnancy, or
cohabitation, but also for myriad other offenses against the moral code of their community. Some
of these may still be gray areas; however, in recent years, courts have been inclined to insist that
actionable immoral conduct be job-related, providing some protection for the private lives of
teachers. Here a particularly contentious matter is whether being a role model is part of the job of
teachers, because this expectation can expand public authority over the lives of teachers. In
certain cases, as when teachers discuss controversial matters in class or employ controversial
teaching methods, they may be protected by the First Amendment. Teachers, especially those
who are tenured, are also likely to have significant due-process rights. Dismissal for immoral
conduct is most likely when the teacher has committed a felony, in cases of inappropriate sexual
advances toward students, or in cases of child abuse. In this last case, teachers may also have a
duty to report suspected misconduct by others. The kinds of misconduct dealt with by the law
are usually acts that are (or can be viewed as) unethical in any context. Teachers, like others, are
expected to not steal, kill, commit assault, abuse children, or engage in sexual harassment.
Although the definition of immoral conduct in the law has not become coextensive with
violations of criminal law, there is little in the meaning of immoral conduct that is distinctive to
teachers or teaching (Carol J. Auster, 2002). In This Global or more specifically, United State of
America’s scenario of ethics and the law, we can see a “somewhat harsh picture of penalty” to
those who can be found “deviant on the set of standards” mandated to be followed by teachers.
However, harsh in some ways but this is the law and one must abide by it. Furthermore,
accepting the said standards is of use not only for the benefit of refraining from penalty, but
also of the social benefit derived from “Teaching with Integrity” (Bruce Macfarlane,
2004). Practice of teaching in the Philippines, like that of the above, is also imbued with
the ideals of ethics. The Code of conduct for Professional Teachers, lays the foundation of
ethical standards that must be followed by teachers in the Philippines through its well
stipulated details. The said code sprouts from the provisions of paragraph (e), Article 11, of
R.A. No. 7836, otherwise known as the Philippine Teachers Professionalization Act of 1994
and paragraph (a), section 6, P.D. No. 223, as amended, the Board for Professional Teachers
hereby adopts the Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers. It must be noted that, this code is
in effect in the country, for; deviant behavior against the said code, has been the cause of
numerous judicial, quasi-judicial and extrajudicial decisions in the history of teachers and
teaching in the country.
 ALTERNATIVE COURSES OF ACTION

Universities and Colleges throughout the archipelago should offer a separate subject which
tackles only the code of conduct for professional teachers; this should be apart from the Legal
foundations of education being offered by the schools.

Revise the Code of Ethics for Professional Teachers. This is to avoid/delete vague concepts
embedded in it, and, to attune the said with the very foundations of law of the land or the
Philippine Constitution.

RECOMMENDATION: All the above stated alternative courses of action hold bearing
in our quest for improvement on matters pertaining to the uplifting the ethical standards of ethics
in the Philippine Education arena.