Gov’t demand increase in teachers and health professionals

Photo: Marc Rell Gepaya/Flickr.com

In order to provide more services to the general public, the government would need to hire 234,542 additional public school teachers and health professionals.

According to Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr, the Department of Education is set to hire 181,980 teachers starting this year until 2020, while the Department of Health will recruit 52,562 health practitioners starting this year until 2022.

This projected demand for employees for both sectors was included in the papers submitted by the Cabinet to the Congress in connection to the Tax Reform for the Acceleration and Inclusion program of the current administration.

It has been cited that this year alone, the Department of Education is spending P15.5 billion to fill up 53,821 teaching positions.

“The fastest-growing profession in the years ahead will be teaching, as DepEd steps up hiring to cope with the demands of a rapidly expanding public school system. The need for Math and Science teachers in particular will be exceptionally strong,” Campos said.

Currently, public school teachers are being paid a monthly salary range of P19,077 for entry-level Teacher I to P39,768 for Master Teacher III. These rates exclude benefits and allowances respectively.

It has also been mentioned by Campos that these pay rates shall increase every year until the rates reach P20,754 for Teacher I and P51,155 for Master Teacher III starting January 1, 2019.

As of the medical sector, the DOH said it would need 39,466 nurses, 3,288 pharmacists, 2,862 medical technologists, 2,497 universal health care implementers, 2,424 doctors, 1,114 dentists and 911 public health associates.