Legal Literacy of Teachers on Selected Laws and Jurisprudence Affecting School Operations

Abstract

Teachers in higher education institutions are responsible for acting in accordance with the law and policies to ensure that equity is provided and rights are not violated. This descriptive-correlational study determined the profile and the level of legal literacy on education laws of 322 teachers of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in the Eastern Visayas Region of the Philippines.  Moreover, it endeavored to determine the association of legal literacy to the identified profile variables through the use of a researcher-made survey instrument. The analyses of data included both descriptive and inferential statistics like frequencies, means, standard deviation, Eta correlation, Pearson product-moment correlation, and Spearman ranks correlation. Results revealed that teachers have low level of legal literacy and that no significant relationship exists between their legal literacy and age, sex, educational background, teacher certification, length of administrative and teaching experience, and exposure to education law. The study recommends the provision of trainings, grants, scholarships and sufficient access to education law resources for teachers in the higher education institutions.