P 2.1 B in 07 Budget
Recto calls for early recruitment of 16,390 teachers

The Education department has been told to hit the ground running once the hiring ban is lifted after the May 14 election so it can take in as many of the 16,390 new teachers it is allowed to recruit this year before classes open in June.

With a scant four weeks separating midterm polls and the school year start, Sen. Ralph Recto also called for the release of the hiring authority to the school divisions and the quota of teachers each can hire.

I do hope teacher recruitment will not be a collateral damage of the elections, Recto said in expressing fears that as main electoral workhorses, education officials may not find time to screen and process applicants.

Opening day shortage of teachers can be avoided if the new mentors will already be in their stations when 17.85 millions students troop to 37,161 public elementary schools and 4,915 public high schools next month, Recto said.

Funding authority must also be issued by the Department of Budget and Management, so recruitment can proceed, Recto added.

Recto said that RA 9401, or the General Appropriations Act, allocates P2.055 billion for the hiring by the DepEd of 16,390 teachers and 882 non-academic personnel this year.

That number is significantly bigger than what the executive originally proposed, the hike coming after the Senate realized that current teacher recruitment level was not enough to meet the surge in public school recruitment, Recto explained.

As a result, the number of teachers to be recruited went up from 10,000 to 16,390 and funding for their initial year salary almost doubled to P2.05 billion.

The new recruits will bring the DepEd teaching force to about 521,000, for an average teacher-to-pupil ratio of 1:38 in public elementary schools and 1:40 in public high schools, the agencys projections show, but there are areas where teacher shortage is chronic so we expect the new teachers to be assigned there and bring pupil-to-teacher ratio to an ideal level, Recto said.

Recto urged the government to employ competitive selection process so it can get the best and the brightest to its teaching corps. Emphasis, Recto said, should be on math and science instructors, as these are the fields our pupils lag behind in diagnostic tests.

The new teachers, he added, can join trainings, especially math, science and English proficiency seminars, for which P1 billion has been earmarked this year. They would also be entitled to the 10 percent salary hike that will take effect in July.