Under its proposed budget for 2020, the Department of Education (DepEd) plans to hire 10,000 additional teachers plus 5,000 non-teaching staff, announced Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones.
DepEd plans to allocate Php1.27 billion for the hiring of 10,000 teachers and Php1.28 billion for the creation of 5,000 new non-teaching positions.
The department did not detail, however, what positions will be covered and how much salary the non-teaching staff will be receiving, but the teachers will receive a basic starting salary of more than Php21,000 a month.
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The Education Secretary also reminded prospective applicants that they also get to enjoy various perks if they accepted in the job. Not only are they getting paid at least Php21,000 a month, they are also entitled to bonuses, 2-month paid vacation, “special hardship pay” for those assigned in far-flung areas, and other perks.
It is worthy of note that though they will be half the number of the teachers to be hired, the non-teaching personnel’s budget is actually a bit higher than the one allocated for the educators.
Budget Shortage?
Last year, the DepEd received a budget of Php530.23 billion; the amount grew to Php550.9 billion in the proposed 2020 budget.
But while the department receives the highest budget of all government agencies, as mandated by law, the DepEd could not also just hire as many teachers as they would have wanted to. In fact, Briones shared that the DepEd had initially planned to hire 41,000 teachers but only 10,000 was allowed by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
With the DepEd’s efforts to reduce the teachers’ burden by planning to reduce the number of students per class, more teachers need to be hired to strengthen the current workforce of 847,400 teaching positions in the DepEd as of April 2019.
Any Salary Increase?
While there’s budget allocated to hire thousands of new teachers and non-teaching personnel, there’s no room in the 2020 budget for the much-anticipated salary increase. Instead of the salary increase, DepEd looks into other ways to increase the teachers’ take-home pay at the soonest time possible.
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One of this is allowing many of the teachers to get promoted faster because the faster promotions would mean they get higher salaries sooner. Other additional benefits are also being planned out, Briones announced.
But groups like the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) believe the department is not doing anything to increase the teachers’ salaries.
“Maraming mga teacher na matagal nang nakapako ang kanilang salary grade dun sa kanilang entry level position. Ang masakit marami sa mga guro kung ano ang position nila sa pagpasok, yun parin ang kanilang position hanggang sa pag-retire,” claimed ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio.
He added that the DepEd has yet to submit a proposal for the teachers’ pay hike.
