Without the long-sought-after P30,000 salary before the end of President Duterte’s term, a teachers’ group has called for entry-level educators to be moved up from their current Salary Grade (SG) 11 to SG 15.
The new call from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) came after it denounced a pay raise signed into law by Mr. Duterte that was short of his assurance and their expectation.
The Salary Standardization Law (SSL) provides a monthly increase of P1,562 for those in SG 11 until 2023, when their total salary will reach P27,000.
ACT, the largest union of public school teachers, has called for an entry-level salary of P30,000.
The SSL all but assures that until 2023, entry-level teachers will remain one of the lowest-paid government professionals, left behind by nurses and uniformed personnel who are set to reap significant salary increases by the end of Mr. Duterte’s term.
Nurses will start receiving a P30,000 salary this year after the Supreme Court ruled that they be moved up to SG 15, which ACT is now clamoring for as well.
“The pay hike enacted by Duterte further depressed teachers’ status as, in current standards, our salaries fall behind those of professionals’ in other fields,” said ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio.
“We deserve better, our profession deserves to be dignified. Hence our call to upgrade teachers’ salaries to SG 15,” he added. Under the law that Mr. Duterte signed, entry-level teachers will receive an increase of P6,246 over four years.
This 30-percent increase is higher than only the pay raise granted by former President Benigno Aquino III, who gave entry-level teachers an increase of just 11.8 percent. Ramos (177 percent), Estrada (39.9 percent) and Arroyo (54 percent) all provided a significantly more generous hike. The role of teachers took on a new urgency in December when the results of the Program for International Student Assessment, a global, large-scale test, showed Filipino students performing the worst of all 79 participating countries.