DepEd has until August to find over 20,000 teachers

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MANILA, Philippines — With just a month to go before its deadline, only 9 percent of the 22,323 vacant teaching positions nationwide have been filled by the Department of Education (DepEd).

Around 22 percent of the vacancies were in various stages of being processed, Education Undersecretary for human resource and organizational development Wilfredo Cabral informed members of the House committee on appropriations on Tuesday during an oversight hearing.

“As of this date, we have 9 percent of these items filled up. Twenty-two percent of the total teaching items are already in the different stages of appointment … and … we have launched a monitoring system for all regions to verify, which regions are complying,” he said.

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According to him, the DepEd issued a memorandum order last year instructing regional directors and school division superintendents to draft catch-up plans to fill up the vacant teaching positions.

He said they were closely monitoring compliance to “ensure that by August, as we specifically stated in our memorandum, that all of these items —whether newly created or previously unfilled—should be filled up to ensure that the budget allocated for these items should be utilized within the end of the fiscal year.”

Hard to fill posts

House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers party list Rep. France Castro noted that there were also 9,673 unfilled items for nonteaching personnel, mostly for administrative officers and assistants.

Cabral described the items as “hard to fill” posts due to their high turnover rate. “Once [applicants] get the position, after a certain period of time, they leave and look for greener pastures.” he said.

Upon DepEd’s request, the budget department approved the creation of 5,000 nonteaching positions this year to relieve teachers of administrative tasks and allow them to focus on providing quality education.