CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Some 49,000 contractual public school teachers nationwide receive as low as P2,000 to P8,000 per month, way below the lowest P18,500 monthly salary of their counterparts with permanent employment status.
In an interview with Punto, ACT Teachers partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio urged the Aquino administration to push for more education budget for the lowly paid teachers to be absorbed into the regular work force of the Department of Education (DepEd).
“These contractual teachers are distributed throughout the country, even in the remotest areas and their pay depends on the funds of the local governments where they work,” Tinio said.
He said the problem of underpaid teachers could be solved if only enough budget is allocated for them in next year’s General Appropriations Act so they could be made regular DepEd teachers. “It can be done in one stroke by the government,” he stressed.
This, even as Tinio said that despite about 60,000 new teachers hired by the government for this school year, 45,000 more are needed to fill in the backlog. “We also remain short of about 37,000 classrooms,” he added.
Tinio noted that the average ratio in public schools has remained one teacher to every 55 pupils which, he said, is way off the maximum ideal ratio of one per 45 students.
“We need to address both issues on teachers and classrooms because unless we do so, the implementation of the K12 system will only aggravate the shortages,” he stressed.
At the same time, Tinio also said that teachers who went on duty for the last May 13 polls are still hopeful that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) would favor their appeal for additional honorarium for their polls assignments once savings from the last elections have been determined.
The teachers were given a total of P4,000 each for their polls duties, but Tinio said that their demand for a total of P6,000 has remained for the next elections. “We got only P4,000 the last time, so we hope that the Comelec would give us as extra P2,000 more once it has determined savings,” Tinio also said.
Tinio noted that some teachers who served last May 13 have yet to receive their P4,000 pay which are sent to them via ATM. “We have received reports of teachers still in wait for their pay, and we hope they would be able to get it soon,” he said.
