5 Cagayan Valley SUCs need 1,570 teachers

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya— Cagayan Valley is asking the national government to raise funds for hiring additional teachers and address the shortage of instructors in five state universities here.

In a resolution, the Regional Development Council (RDC) urged the Department of Budget and Management and the Commission on Higher Education to create 1,570 college teaching positions.

“It is imperative for the state universities and colleges (SUCs) to address this concern to reach an acceptable level of competence in producing competitive, responsible, productive and self-fulfilling graduates,” the RDC resolution said.

The council passed the resolution in its regular meeting in Santa Ana town, Cagayan province, on Monday. It said hiring more teachers would require an additional P516.8 million annually to cover salaries and other benefits.

The council members first raised their concern in June over the shortage of teachers in public colleges. The council said the region’s SUCs and their 20 satellite campuses had been dealing with increased enrollment.

Enrollment

Cagayan State University (eight campuses), Isabela State University (four campuses), Nueva Vizcaya State University (two campuses), Quirino State University (three campuses) and Batanes State College have been serving students from middle-income and low-income families.

“SUCs in the region remain the most viable option for most students pursuing higher education as evidenced [by] the steady increase in student population since 2005,” the RDC said.

The rise in enrollment has caused the student-teacher ratio of these colleges to balloon to 1:42, exceeding the ideal 1:25 standard ratio.

The RDC said a 1976 law that governs the creation of new SUC teaching positions no longer responds to a “changing educational system and landscape.”

To cope with the shortage, the SUCs in the region have temporarily resorted to hiring contractual and job-order teachers, the resolution said.

“But with such arrangement, SUCs always had to deal with the sudden departure of teachers [in exchange] for better opportunities outside the academe,” it said.

The RDC said the number of additional teaching positions was derived from an earlier study that looked into the SUCs’ course offerings, teaching load of permanent faculty members, and finances that would be needed to hire new teachers. Melvin Gascon, Inquirer Northern Luzon