While it welcomes the P30-Billion internet allowance for teachers and learners in the Bayanihan 3 bill, a federation of teachers on Monday clamored for more funds in order to address other education needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

For the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), inclusion of P30-billion for internet allowance for teachers and students in all levels under the Bayanihan III bill recently filed by House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Marikina 2nd District Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo was a “positive development.” 

“Finally, some of our lawmakers have heeded the undeniably just clamor of teachers for P1500 monthly internet allowance, which have been ignored in the Bayanihan 2 Law and the 2021 General Appropriations Act,” said ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio. 

The teachers’ group, however, said that more is needed in order to avert the learning crisis and prepare for eventual in-classroom learning in 2022. “The other urgent needs of education should equally be addressed to avert the learning crisis,” he added. 

ACT proposed for an additional P120 billion funding to basic public education in 2021 - in which about P15 billion is for the preparation for in-classroom learning in low-risk areas; P98 billion to fund the needs of distance learning, and P7 billion for health protection and benefits of education front liners. 

“Major reforms need to be done in the government’s poorly-funded and ill-equipped learning continuity program given the growing number of learners at risk of dropping out under distance learning,” Basilio said. 

“This cannot continue for another year or two as the social costs would be too high if we would just wait for vaccines to become available for in-classroom learning to resume,” he ended.