'Definitely': DepEd commits to back salary hike proposal for teachers
At A Glance
- The Department of Education (DepEd) has committed to support a proposal to increase the salary of public school teachers, should there be one.
(MANILA BULLETIN)
The Department of Education (DepEd) has committed to support a proposal to increase the salary of public school teachers, should there be one.
"Definitely we will be supporting the proposal for increasing [salary of] teachers, but is has to be empirically-based," Undersecretary Gloria Jumamil-Mercado, told members of the House Committee on Appropriations Wednesday, Aug. 30.
Held Wednesday by the appropriations panel was the 2024 budget hearing of DepEd headed by Vice President Sara Duterte. Duterte led the DepEd contingent in the hearing.
In her interpellation, ACT-Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro raised before the panel the P86.9 billion that had been set aside by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for the potential salary increase among government employees next year.
The amount was bared by no less than DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman at the start of the committee hearings early this month. She said the salary hike must be endorsed by the executive branch.
As such, Castro, a Makabayan bloc stalwart and a teacher herself, asked the DepEd officials whether or not the agency would support a salary hike for teachers and education personnel. Mercado answered in the affirmative.
She added that the agency was already looking at a study from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) to facilitate such a salary hike.
"We used to leverage our rates with the private sector but I must say that with the diaspora of 30,000 from the private sector to our public sector, we cannot anymore make reference to the rates of the private sector," Mercado said.
"Pangalawa ma'am (Second ma'am), we have an existing study which was already initiated by the [PUP] and its a study wherein we will be looking at the inflation rate of the country and we will be leveraging the salary increases," she added.