Manila Bulletin
Philippines
Group highlights 'sufferings' of teachers; demands urgent education reforms
Philippines
Group highlights 'sufferings' of teachers; demands urgent education reforms
Group highlights 'sufferings' of teachers; demands urgent education reforms
Published Apr 3, 2023 01:58 pm
Inhumane workload, low salaries, delayed benefits, lacking teaching and learning needs, and red-tagging.
For a group of education workers, these are the “crosses” that Filipino teachers carry every day that hinders education recovery from the learning crisis.
To call the attention of the government, members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines on Monday, April 3, staged a protest at the Department of Education (DepEd) Central Office in Pasig City.
ACT staged “Kalbaryo ng mga Guro” and called on the government to implement urgent education reforms and for the DepEd to stop its “attacks” against the group and union work.
“We call on the Marcos administration to end its red-tagging spree against our unions and focus on resolving the education shortages and teachers’ dire labor conditions so that education can be saved from further decline,” said ACT-National Capital Region (NCR) Union President Ruby Bernardo.
Bernardo noted that the “overworked, underpaid and undersupported status” of teachers cannot be resolved without “boldly increasing the government spending to education to resolve the grave shortages in classrooms, teachers and education support personnel, and improve our economic conditions amid the crisis.”
She pointed out that since the Marcos government assumed office, ACT has been calling for the doubling of the education budget up to the six percent equivalent of the gross domestic product but its demands “seem to be falling on deaf ears.”
ACT maintained that the best solution is for the government to do its constitutional duty of allocating the largest public funds to education, instead of to debt-servicing or infrastructure programs which “only benefited foreign interests” than it did the people.
“Starting 2024, we need 50,000 classrooms build yearly and 30,000 new teachers hired per year until 2028 to eradicate the shortages,” Bernardo said.
As the Salary Standardization Law V ends this year, ACT said that there is an urgent need to “implement the overdue upgrading of the entry-level pay of teachers” --- from the current salary grade 11 to salary grade 15 --- to “free our teachers of economic burdens and enable them to improve the quality of teaching and of education.”
(Photos courtesy of ACT Philippines)
ACT staged “Kalbaryo ng mga Guro” and called on the government to implement urgent education reforms and for the DepEd to stop its “attacks” against the group and union work.
“We call on the Marcos administration to end its red-tagging spree against our unions and focus on resolving the education shortages and teachers’ dire labor conditions so that education can be saved from further decline,” said ACT-National Capital Region (NCR) Union President Ruby Bernardo.
Bernardo noted that the “overworked, underpaid and undersupported status” of teachers cannot be resolved without “boldly increasing the government spending to education to resolve the grave shortages in classrooms, teachers and education support personnel, and improve our economic conditions amid the crisis.”
She pointed out that since the Marcos government assumed office, ACT has been calling for the doubling of the education budget up to the six percent equivalent of the gross domestic product but its demands “seem to be falling on deaf ears.”
ACT maintained that the best solution is for the government to do its constitutional duty of allocating the largest public funds to education, instead of to debt-servicing or infrastructure programs which “only benefited foreign interests” than it did the people.
“Starting 2024, we need 50,000 classrooms build yearly and 30,000 new teachers hired per year until 2028 to eradicate the shortages,” Bernardo said.
As the Salary Standardization Law V ends this year, ACT said that there is an urgent need to “implement the overdue upgrading of the entry-level pay of teachers” --- from the current salary grade 11 to salary grade 15 --- to “free our teachers of economic burdens and enable them to improve the quality of teaching and of education.”
(Photos courtesy of ACT Philippines)