DepEd urged to hire jobless OFWs as teachers

A Quezon City councilor has a suggestion for solving the teacher shortage nationwide as a result of the implementation of the K-12 program: Fill the job vacancies with qualified ex-overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) currently unemployed.

A proposed resolution that seeks to urge the Department of Education (DepEd) to hire qualified jobless OFWs to teach technical-vocational courses was referred on Monday for further review to the city council’s committees on education, science and technology; labor, employment and OFWs.

In drafting the resolution, Councilor Julienne Alyson Rae Medalla cited the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, which extended the high school curriculum from four to six years and incorporated senior high school where students are given the option of specializing in academics, the technical-vocational field or in sports and the arts.

The additional two years of high school, the DepEd earlier reported, has caused as of July a shortage of 33,000 public high school teachers nationwide, she noted.

“More than 5,000 OFWs have been repatriated because of conflicts in the Middle East, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. There is a need to provide employment to the repatriated OFWs,” Medina said.

She added that based on data from the National Statistics Office from 2005 to 2011, more than 30 percent of OFWs were in the mining, construction and manufacturing industries.

“Former OFWs who are currently unemployed can be hired to teach provided that they are graduates of technical-vocational courses or are experts in their fields,” Medalla said.

She went on to say that “the hiring of former OFWs could provide employment for them and supplement the shortage of teachers for effective implementation of the K-12 program,” she added.