Philippines
National
Teaching supplies allowance should be included in nat'l budget --- Gordon
Teaching supplies allowance should be included in nat'l budget --- Gordon
Senator Richard J. Gordon today called on his colleagues to ensure that allocations for the proposed teaching supplies allowance would be included in the annual general appropriations bill (GAB).
Gordon stressed this point as senators are still debating on the amount for the proposed teaching supplies allowance for public school teachers.
This is to ensure that Senate Bill (SB) 1092, or the Teaching Supplies Allowance Act of 2019, would remove the additional burden of shouldering the expenses for purchasing teaching supplies from public school teachers once classes could be conducted inside the classrooms again.
“Bakit ang mga teachers pa ang magbabayad ng chalk, ng mga papel nila kung minsan? It’s really about time that we do this,” he said. Reports said some public school teachers had to buy chalks, erasers, forms and other classroom supplies and materials using their own hard-earned money. (Why should teachers pay from their pockets for chalks and paper?)
SB 1092 proposes to institutionalize the grant of a teaching supplies allowance for public school teachers to promote and improve the economic status of teachers and assist them in providing quality education to their students. The allowance shall be limited to teachers who are engaged in actual classroom reaching in public basic education.
Gordon, however, pointed out that it would only become a dead letter law or one that is ineffective from the beginning if there would be no appropriation for it.
“I am in support of this bill and I would like to be co-author. But upon perusal, this is a bill that relies on an inchoate situation, in other words, in expectancy,’’ he said.
‘’In other words, kung hindi natin mapapasok sa NEP (national expenditure program), kung di mapapasok sa GAB and later on sa General Appropriations Acy (GAA), there might be rank demoralization again, pagtatawanan tayo. And I don’t think that is the intention of this bill. My view is that we should all really join hands in making sure that this is funded under the General Appropriations bill and later on the GAA,” he stressed. (In other words, if we do not put this appropriation in the National Expenditure Program (NEP), if we do not include this in the General Appropriations Billl (GAB) and later in the GAA, there might be rank demoralization. We will be laughed at.)