INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – After issuing a freeze on the hiring of new teachers in March, the Department of Education is now allowing the conditional hiring of “volunteer teachers” for kindergarten.
Education Secretary Armin Luistro lifted the freeze on the hiring of qualified kindergarten “volunteer teachers” in a July 11 memorandum in which he spelled out the condition under which new teachers may be accepted on a temporary basis.
Volunteer teachers do not receive full compensation but instead volunteer their services to gain experience in the expectation of being hired full-time when a vacancy arises.
The conditions set by Luistro include the following: the applicant must have passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers and must meet the qualifications for entry-level teaching positions. Priority must be given to those who have qualified as of the school year 2012-2013.
Luistro said each kindergarten volunteer teacher was to receive P3,000 per class monthly. He directed all schools division offices to pay the honorarium at the end of each month or not later than the second week of the following month out of the kindergarten education budget in the 2014 general appropriations act.
“It must be clearly communicated to these kindergarten volunteer teachers that their regularization or absorption into the national plantilla is not guaranteed. However, in the event of a natural vacancy occurring within the school year, they may apply for the available regular item,” Luistro said in his memorandum.
Before requesting the office of the secretary for the approval of hiring kindergarten volunteer teachers, the schools division offices were reminded to transfer excess teachers to schools with shortages.
The formula for computing teacher shortages must be based on parameters set by the DepEd which state that a kindergarten teacher must have at most 35 pupils per session; and elementary multi-grade teachers (those teaching two grades or more simultaneously in one classroom) must have a maximum of 30 pupils per class.
Grades 1 and 2 teachers must have a maximum of 50 students as an ideal class size while teachers for grades 3 and 4 must have ideally at most 55 pupils. Teachers in grades 5, 6 and high school must have a maximum of 55 students with subject specialization where five teachers are to handle three classes.
Luistro said that in their request, the schools division offices must include data on the number of classes, teachers and students in their areas as well as their justification and recommendations on the necessity of hiring kindergarten volunteer teachers.
An unnumbered memorandum issued by the secretary on March 20 had discontinued the hiring of locally paid teachers and kindergarten volunteer teachers except for qualified local government unit-funded and DepEd subsidized teachers as of 2012 for school year 2014-2015.
The freeze-hire order was, according to the memorandum, in line with the department’s aim to provide quality education and address the “shortages” in all public schools nationwide.
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