AN ADDITIONAL 9,153 public school teachers will be hired by the Department of Education this school year, bringing to 501,188 the total number of public school teachers in the country. DepEd has set aside nearly P3 billion of this year’s P174-billion budget for the new positions.
Education Secretary Jesli A. Lapus said, despite the creation of the new positions, the 42,204 public primary and secondary schools nationwide still needed some 23,000 teachers.
According to DepEd, 5,396 of the new teachers will be assigned to elementary schools while 3,757 will go to high schools.
Southern Tagalog gets the most Teacher 1 appointees with 1,358, followed by Metro Manila, 832; Central Visayas, 812; South Cotabato, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Saranggani and General Santos City (Soccsksargen), 784; Central Luzon, 721; Eastern Visayas, 600; Bicol, 531; Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, 516; and Zamboanga Peninsula, 406.
Vacancies remain
Lapus said budgetary constraints made it impossible to fill all vacancies. The bulk of the DepEd budget, around P138 billion, goes to salaries of teaching and non-teaching personnel.
In the past four years, the department hired 40,914 teachers. It hired 6,475 in 2005, 7,237 in 2006, 16,334 in 2007 and 10,868 in 2008.
The DepEd accounts for a little over a third of the government bureaucracy. More than 350,000 public school teachers currently handle primary classes while close to 140,000 are in secondary schools.
The average teacher-student ratio in elementary schools is 1:36. In high school it is 1:39, according to the latest DepEd Report Card.
But Antonio Tinio, chair of the militant Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), remained unimpressed by efforts to ease the shortage of teachers.
“For nearly a decade, the Arroyo administration has failed to eliminate the teacher shortage, resulting in an unprecedented increase in class sizes that reach 60-80 students, especially in urban areas. As a result, public school teachers are more exploited and the quality of education has further deteriorated,” he said.
Focus on growth
Lapus, however, said DepEd continued to focus on the professional growth and welfare of teachers and non-teaching staff.
Human resource development is one of DepEd’s priority thrusts. Others are expanding opportunities for preschool education, increasing pupil participation by reaching the out-of-school, raising the proficiency level of students, improving health and nutrition of school children, strengthening public-private partnership in education, providing new resources for learning, and addressing school resource requirements. “Teachers’ welfare and benefits are our paramount concern. Why? Because teachers are our frontline,” Lapus said. He said “the school system can only be as good as our teachers.”
Improve competencies
To enhance teaching competencies, the DepEd has training programs for preschool, elementary, high school, as well as mobile and special education teachers. These include the National English Proficiency Program, Certificate Program for Nonmajors in Science and Mathematics (in coordination with the Department of Science and Technology and the Commission on Higher Education), and a similar program for non-majors in English, Pilipino, social studies, music, arts, and physical education, among others.
DepEd was also trying to improve teachers’ living standards through monetary benefits, said Lapus.
The department, together with various teacher organizations, is pushing for the passage of House Bill 4734 and its counterpart, Senate Bill 2408, that will raise the monthly salaries of public school teachers by P9,000.
Jonathan Malaya, DepEd assistant secretary for special projects and legislative liaison, furnished the Inquirer a copy of a manifesto that read, “This disparity in our basic pay and benefits as compared to similarly ranked personnel in other government agencies highlights our sad plight as teachers, the molders of our youth and future leaders, considering our profession is equal, if not more peculiar, in terms of duties and hazards.”
