Teachers to hold ‘chalk holiday’ Sept. 16

MANILA, Philippines—For one day, roughly 100,000 public school teachers will lay down their chalk and leave blackboards empty.

Members of the militant Alliance of Concerned Teachers are set to hold a “chalk holiday” on September 16 as it pushes for higher chalk allowance in 2012 government budget appropriations.

“We have sent a memorandum to all chapters that we will have a chalk holiday next Friday. We have 100,000 members nationwide, not to mention our friends and allies,” said Benjie Valbuena, ACT vice chair.

“We will teach our students that day but we will not use chalks to emphasize our demand,” he said.

ACT is demanding an almost three-fold hike in the P700 yearly chalk allowance of teachers, asking that the subsidy be raised to P2,000. This amounts to P9.85 per school day, from the current P3.50.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said the Department of Education was open to the proposal as long as it is backed by additional funding upon the approval of Congress. The proposed DepEd budget for 2012 is P237 billion, 14 percent higher than the current P207-billion budget.

As there are some 500,000 teachers in the public school system, DepEd would need a budget of P1 billion to provide a P2,000 chalk allowance for each.