Department of Education announced last Saturday the addition of newly created positions intended for 900,000 currently employed PH teachers.
New job positions for PH teachers
The Department of Education (DepEd) announced last Saturday the creation of new job positions for 900,000 currently employed PH teachers. But a local teacher’s federation warned about the move being useless if it is a standalone program and not a holistic solution for PH education system problems.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)applauded the creation of new job positions through the initiative of the Department of Education. These new job positions give an opportunity for career development for teachers and as well as better compensation through higher salary grades.
However, if it is a standalone program then it will still be insufficient to solve the country’s problem in education quality.
Teacher promotion
DepEd Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan confirmed the creation of new job positions with job titles: Teacher IV, Teacher V, Teacher VI, and Teacher VII. The following positions are expected to have a significantly higher salary grade compared to current job positions.
According to Undersecretary Malaluan,
The program is expected to benefit around 900,000 currently employed PH teachers nationwide. Teacher 3 positions now have additional job promotion opportunties ahead of them. Promotions are great motivators for our teachers to uplift their professional development and enhance their skillsets.
While ACT supports the promotion system that DepEd created, the group also want to reiterate that for this to be successful, it should be accompanied by other programs that address common PH education problems.
PH education is suffering from lack of classrooms, sufficient teachers to accommodate a growing student population, learning resources such as books on a one to one basis, and substandard facilities.
The ACT is worried that despite the move of DepEd to motivate teachers, it still won’t resolve the fact that PH teachers are overworked and overburdened due to high student number to teacher ratio in schools accompanied by overcrowded classrooms.
PH education has a lot of revamping and ironing needed, PH teachers are hopeful that DepEd is well aware and fully dedicated to addressing these concerns.
Featured image by Philippine Star
