Volunteer gov’t teachers regularized next year

FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Most long-time “volunteer” teachers in public schools whose salaries are paid for by local government units will be absorbed as regular teachers by the Department of Education next year.

DepEd’s proposed budget of P336.9 billion for next year includes an allocation P8.6 billion for 33,194 new teaching positions.

“Next year most of the items will be used to regularize qualified local government-funded teachers and volunteer kinder teachers,” Assistant Secretary for planning Jesus Mateo said.

This year 11,022 qualified local government-funded or volunteer teachers were absorbed and given regular positions in the DepEd plantilla.

They were among the record 61,510 teacher positions that were created under DepEd’s P293.32-billion budget for the year.

Mateo said they can not absorb all current volunteer teachers hired by local government units since some have not passed the requisite Licensure Examination for Teachers.

Due to the scarcity of available plantilla positions in DepEd, many “volunteer” teachers are hired by local governments at lower salaries to fill in the shortage of teachers in their public schools.

In the three years under the Aquino administration, DepEd has closed the gap in the identified shortage of public school teachers.

In 2010, the shortage of public school teachers stood at 145,827.

As of June 30, DepEd said it has hired 102,323 teachers including the 61,510 teachers hired this year.

Of the 61,510 positions, DepEd said 56,085 teachers have already been hired while the remaining 5,425 are already teaching while waiting for their official appointment papers.

About 36,000 local government-funded teachers remain in public schools, including “volunteer” kindergarten teachers.

Kindergarten only became mandatory last year, which allowed DepEd to open regular positions for kindergarten teachers.

Mateo said it used to take eight to nine months and even up to a year to process teachers’ appointments.

“Now some appointments were processed in just three months,” he said.

He said they have to balance speeding up the hiring process with the need to thoroughly assess an applicant’s qualifications.

“Whether a fresh graduate or a veteran contractual, what’s important is we hire the most qualified teachers for our schools,” Mateo said.