Gov’t hiring 81,000 extra teachers for K to 12

MANILA — Congress is expected to create thousands of new posts for public school teachers to bring to fruition President Benigno Aquino III’s “K to 12” Program under the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2014, said House Deputy Majority Leader and Makati City Rep. Mar-Len Abigail Binay.

Citing a Department of Education (DepEd) preliminary report, Binay said up to 81,637 new senior high school teachers may be required upon the roll-out of K to 12 between 2016 and 2017.

The report assumes that some 1.1 million Grade 10 finishers of public junior high school will enroll in public senior high school by then, according to Binay.

The Makati lady solon identified the senior high school subjects that are anticipated to entail additional instructors (with the number of teachers required in brackets) as follows:

English (8,178); Filipino (7,267); Social Science (8,697); Humanities (4,171); Math/Statistics (7,267); Advance Math (609); Physical Science (6,313); Life Science (5,707); Information & Communications Technology (3,982); ABM/Economics/Entrepreneurship (6,356); Philosophy (3,412); Technical Vocational Education & Training (15,634); and PE (4,055).

“We are reporting these figures out so that this early, teacher education students who are about to graduate, fresh (teacher education) graduates, as well as newly licensed teachers still looking for gainful employment, can start specializing in subjects where their services may be required by K to 12,” Binay said.

She added: “We understand the new teaching posts will be on top of those which DepEd may seek to create in the proposed 2015 national budget to fill the public school system’s existing staff shortages.”

Commission on Higher Education (CHED) records show that some 450,000 students are now taking up teacher education, making it the most heavily subscribed college program.

The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) issued licenses to 70,672 new elementary and high school teachers in 2013 alone.

K to 12 covers Kindergarten and 12 years of basic education — six years of elementary (Grades 1-6), four years of junior high (Grades 7-10), plus two years of senior high (Grades 11-12).

The program adds two years of senior high to basic education in order to allow students to fully master concepts and skills, develop lifelong learners, and prepare graduates for tertiary education, middle-level skills development, employment, and entrepreneurship.

DepEd is now the country’s biggest employer of teachers, with a total of 669,997 permanent posts, of which 591,163 have been filled.

It spent a total of P148.37 billion to pay for the filled permanent teaching posts in 2013 alone.

In a bid to address the lack of educators, DepEd is hiring another 33,194 teachers and 1,500 school principals this year at a cost of P9.5 billion. This is on top of the 61,510 teachers recruited in 2013.