BCLP Computer Instructors: The Busiest Computer Instructor On Earth

Barangay Computer Literacy Program in Pasig are the busiest computer instructor the world have never known. This is what I think of my profession. I am part of this BCLP family that is serving the residents of Pasig City in the Philippines.

Unlike in most schools and training centers, BCLP Instructors are not just doing their job as teachers. Aside from conducting training to its students, a lot of jobs and task that are not part of their job description as computer instructors are performed by each and every instructors of Barangay Computer Literacy Program.

In most schools and training centers, instructors are teaching courses based on their field of specialty. For example, an instructor that is teaching in the field of graphics and design are just teaching courses like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. And other instructors that specialized in other courses are just teaching applications on their field of specialization. Well, not in the case of BCLP Instructors. BCLP instructors were asked to offer all four BCLP levels if their training centers passed the system requirements for a a certain level.
Ok, conducting those all four BCLP levels are still fine for me as BCLP computer instructor. But the other tasks that are being done and were very annoying were those tasks that I believe should be done by office clerks.

Start of Semester
The semester will start by accepting enrollees. The instructor's job is to advertise and promote the BCLP by doing some announcement and public address. Then the instructos will accept enrollees and their requirements for the entire enrollment period. The next job of the instructor is to advised the incoming students to attend the General Brainwashing Orientation. And who's going to get the attendance of the attendees? BCLP computer instructor.
At the start of the training, bclp instructor's next job is to prepare paper works or reports for the beggining of the current sem. Reports like List of Enrollees, Schedule of Classes with Student's Name per Session, and List of Students with Control Number.
While encoding and preparing those reports, the other job of instructors for the beginning of the semester is to prepare the Identification Cards of new students, collecting the student's T-shirt and to submit those shirt for printing. That will be the student's uniform for the computer training.

Assessment Period
At the end of the semester, the bclp students will have their assessment. And instructors were asked to guide accompany their students during the assessment. It is the instructor's job to gather and tabulate the scores of the students. In most cases, bclp instructors are preparing meals and treats for the assessor. Although it is not required, it is advisable to feed the assessor to have a better chance of passing large number of students. Funny isn't it? Yeah, and it became customary in bclp. If the instructor doesn't offer any meal or treats for the assessor, expect that the assessor's feeling and judgment will be erratic and bias against you.

End of the Semester / Start of New Semester
After the assessment, it is now time to prepare for another numerous reports to be passed again, by the instructors. Reports like Assessment Result, List of Graduates, Student's Performance, Top Ten, New Format of List of Graduates and Student's Profile with picture. By the way, this end part of the current semester is overlapping with the beginning of the next semester. So by doing this, bclp instructors were expected that they are doing their job for the start of the semester like promoting the program through announcements and p.a. and accepting new students for the next semester.

Graduation
Until the graduation came, bclp instructors are still working by printing their student's Certificate. After the printing of certificate, the next task of the instructor is to mark each of the certificate with the Dry Seals of the Local Government of Barangay and City Government of Pasig. The instructor should make sure that all the certificates are in ascending order for easy distribution during the graduation ceremony.
Graduation Day in bclp don't happen on a regular basis. A lot of times, the instructors are exerting effort to gather their students by sending them SMS or text and calling them from their home. This is because most graduation days are happening after so many months since the last day of assessment. On the day of the graduation, the instructor's next job is to prepare and decorate the venue. After the ceremony, who will clean the venue? Still the bclp computer instructors. Isn't this a job for engineering or maintenance people? Oh no, in bclp, these are also the job of Computer Instructors.

With this type of system, should we change our job title from BCLP Computer Instructors to BCLP All-Around-Personnel? The funny thing is, most people don't know about this thing happening to bclp. Because they believe that the BCLP office are doing those job and we bclp instructors are just focusing on conducting training.