A WEEK before the opening of classes last Monday, June 3, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced that it needs 33,000 teachers to fill vacant positions in public schools all over the country.
Of this total, 23,000 had long been vacant. The 10,000 are new, additional vacancies, determined after the registration this school year. These are figures added up by the main office from reports of school divisions all over the country.
Zamboanga City Division Superintendent Felix Romy Triambulo disclosed how Zamboanga – one of the country’s DepEd divisions – is trying to cope with the problem on the ground. Speaking at a news conference, he said that as the city population has increased to nearly one million, the division had asked the national office for 976 more teachers, but the request was not granted.
Triambulo said he therefore directed school administrators in the division to undertake appropriate emergency measures, as the policy is to accept all children seeking enrollment. Among the emergency measures were raising the number students per class to 75, adopting multi-grade classes, and double-shifting – one group of classes in the morning and another group in the afternoon.
He said he appealed to the local teachers to “to give a little sacrifice for the sake of the academic welfare of our school children, some of whom may later become leaders of their communities.”
This is also happening in many other parts of the country. And we have no doubt the teachers are responding to similar appeals from their own school officials. For that is how teachers have been through the ages – ready to do more, give more, make the necessary sacrifices for the children in their care.
At the start of his administration, President Duterte vowed to increase the salaries of government workers, particularly police and military men and teachers. Congress was able to double the salaries of the men and women in uniform after a year. The President assured the teachers they would be next.
Teachers and other government workers have been receiving annual tranches of pay adjustments, but they have not been as fortunate as the men in uniform. This may explain why the Department of Education does not have enough teachers for the nation’s schoolchildren.
The highest priority in government spending today is on infrastructure under “Build, Build, Build,” and that is expected to boost national economic development within the next few years. The nation’s public school system may not be as crucial in the eyes of our officials, but it is a long-range program that will ultimately be more important to our nation.
The nation’s schools will have to undertake emergency measures this school year, such as bigger classes and multiple shifting, but the basic problem of not enough teachers is largely due to low pay. The administration and Congress must give this problem the highest possible priority.
