10,000 Teachers to be hired by DepEd under 2019’s ₱2.11 billion Budget

The Department of Education (DepEd) said that it is targeting to hire around 10,000 new teachers this year, as the government has allotted ₱2.11 billion for teachers under the 2019 budget.

This development was announced during a recent joint meeting between the House Committees on Appropriations and of Basic Education and Culture, which aimed to assess the DepEd’s budget performance.

Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said that these new teachers will be deployed nationwide. Out of the 10,000, he said that 2,797 will be hired for kindergarten/elementary, 2,443 will be hired for junior high school, and 4,770 will be hired for senior high school.

DepEd adds that ₱20.3 billion was allocated this year under the Senior High School (SHS) Voucher Program  to cover 1.3 million senior high schools nationwide.

DepEd urged to review teacher-to-student ratio

Rep. Florida Robes of San Jose Del Monte, House Committee on Basic Education and Culture Member, urges the DepEd to review the average teacher-to-student ratio in the country in order the improve our teaching systems.

Malaluan said that for the school year 2018-2019, there is an average of one teacher for every 29 elementary school students, one teacher for every 25 junior high school students, and one teacher for every 29 senior high school students.

He explains however that these ratios indicates the national student to teacher average – certain schools face an excess, while others face deficiencies.

He adds that the relocation and transition issues of placing teachers in underserved areas are contributing factors for this.

“It really requires our divisions to be able to reallocate teachers where there are excess [like in Metro Manila] and be able to deploy them to the areas where they need more teachers from the existing teaching force. But it’s also difficult for teachers to just simply move from one location to the other,” said Malaluan.

via Business Mirror / Jovee Marie de la Cruz