Proposed DepEd budget covers higher chalk allowance

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Education could increase public school teachers’ annual chalk allowance if granted a higher budget for 2012, Education Secretary Armin Luistro has said.

Luistro, who faced Congress in budget deliberations last week, said the department could grant teachers’ requests for a higher allowance if Congress approves its P237-billion budget for 2012, a proposal that is 14 percent higher than this year’s P207-billion education budget.

“Of course, we will increase the chalk allowance if we are granted an increase in the budget,” Luistro said when asked about calls to raise the annual subsidy.

Teachers currently receive P700 a year as chalk allowance, roughly a subsidy of P3.50 per school day, to purchase chalk and other supplies for their classes. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers has been pushing to raise the annual allowance to P2,000 or some P9.85 per day.

This increase would require a total P1 billion budget as allowance for some 500,000 public school teachers, almost three times the current chalk fund of P350,000.

ACT party -list Representative Antonio Tinio has filed House Bill 4134, the Teaching Supplies Act, to effect this subsidy increase by law.

He said that teachers often shell out their own money to buy classroom supplies.

“Is there any other government agency that forces its employees to pay for office supplies out of their own pockets?  It is only in the DepEd that teachers must pay for teaching supply out of their own meager salaries,” said Tinio in a statement.

He said raising the allowance would ease the burden of public school teachers, already struggling with wages known to be lower than their counterparts in private schools.