Looking out for the welfare of teachers, and in a bid to upgrade the country's teaching standards, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced on Wednesday, July 27 that it is planning to remove administrative tasks from teachers.
In a press conference, DepEd Spokesperson Atty. Michael Poa stated that this is part of DepEd's plan spearheaded by Vice President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte as part of the curriculum review. To upskill the teachers and upgrade the teaching standards, Poa stated that teachers need to focus on teaching.
"Kasi napapansin na bukod sa pagtuturo, meron din silang admin tasks (We noticed that aside from teaching, they also have admin tasks)," Poa mentioned..
"To complement, we will perhaps have to hire non-teaching staff to handle those things," he added.
Non-basic wage benefits
Poa explained that the market standard for salaries in the country in the general context is the private sector. Due to the Salary Standardization Law, he said that increases were imposed from 2019 and the last tranche will be in 2023 making the salary of teachers continuously growing.
"There is data that their salaries are actually better than their counterparts in the private sector," he said.
Poa explained that if DepEd will make the basic wage of teachers too high, it will really affect the private sector. Either teachers from the private sector will transfer to the government or it may not be able to provide the same basic wage forcing the institutions to close, he said.
While Duterte understands the concerns of the teachers, Poa said that they will be looking at non-basic wage benefits that we can give them to increase their take-home pay. He added that this has already been proposed to the President and he has instructed this be looked into.
Under this, Poa said that there are several allowances that they are looking into but no final measure has been made yet.