Some public school teachers get only P2,000 a month

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – Some 49,000 contractual public school teachers nationwide receive as little as P2,000 to P8,000 per month, way below the lowest P18,500 monthly salary of their colleagues with permanent employment status, ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio said yesterday.

With the glaring disparity, Tinio urged the Aquino administration to allocate a bigger education budget so that the lowly paid teachers will be absorbed into the regular workforce of the Department of Education (DepEd).

“These contractual teachers are distributed throughout the country, even in the remotest areas and their pay depends on the funds of the local governments where they work,” Tinio said.

He said the problem of underpaid teachers could be solved if enough budget is allocated for them in next year’s General Appropriations Act.

“It can be done in one stroke by the government,” Tinio said.

He added that despite the hiring of about 60,000 new teachers this school year, 45,000 more are needed to fill the backlog.

“We also remain short of about 37,000 classrooms,” he said.

Tinio noted that the average ratio in public schools has remained at one teacher for every 55 pupils, which is way off the ideal ratio of one teacher per 45 pupils.

“We need to address both issues on teachers and classrooms because unless we do so, the implementation of the K+ 12 system will only aggravate the shortages,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tinio also said that teachers who were on duty during the May 13 midterm polls are still hopeful that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) would favor their appeal for additional honorarium once savings from the last elections have been determined.

The teachers were given a total of P4,000 each for their poll duty.

“We got only P4,000 the last time, so we hope that the Comelec would give us as extra P2,000 once it has determined its savings,” Tinio said.