Narratives of Public Schools Educators Who are Part-Timers in Private Schools

Abstract

Public-school educators in the Philippines, under the Department of Education (DepEd), increasingly pursue part-time teaching in private schools to supplement income, enhance professional skills, gain diverse pedagogical exposure, and mentor pre-service teachers. This interpretive phenomenological study focuses on 15 purposively selected DepEd educators from Valencia City, Bukidnon, who balance full-time public-school responsibilities with part-time roles at Valencia Colleges (Bukidnon), Inc., while managing heavy ancillary workloads and contextual challenges such as weather disruptions. The study addresses a local knowledge gap concerning their lived experiences of time conflicts, exhaustion, policy adaptation, and resource constraints, despite existing Philippine and international literature on teacher workload and moonlighting. Using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, the study explores educators’ motivations, struggles, coping strategies, and advice. Findings indicate multifaceted drivers, persistent time-management pressures, and the use of proactive planning and flexible modalities to sustain dual roles. The results underscore the need for policy measures such as workload caps, flexible scheduling guidelines, and targeted training to support teacher retention, promote work–life balance, and enhance educational equity.