The Department of Education (DepEd) is looking to hire more than 65,000 personnel in the coming year. This range is both for teaching and non-teaching posts in the department's reaches. And if you're wondering why the DepEd suddenly needed this quantity, Jess Mateo, the Undersecretary of the DepEd, said that the department currently has 932,760 filled up.
He said during a budget hearing that the department needs a total of 988,567 filled up; they would need to hire 60K and more in the coming year.
The filled-up positions is 932,760 and the unfilled is 55,807 or five percent po…Ang nakalagay po doon sa positions namin sa (2021 National Expenditures Program) budget na sinubmit ay 10,000."
Read: San Miguel Corporation’s Assistance to Frontliners
In Translation: The filled up positions are 932,760 and the unfilled is 55,807, or five percent. What's indicated in our positions (in the 2021 National Expenditures Program) that we submitted is at 10,000.
Better and More Effective Teacher-to Student Ratio
Mateo said that the DepEd is looking for over 65,000 teachers to improve and develop their teacher-to-student ratio. Meaning, classrooms would have a better and a more effective way of educating learners.
The undersecretary even added that because of retirement, there are some positions that would be vacant sometime in the middle of the school year.
Read: The DepEd Suggests Specific Screen Time for Students
Kung mapapansin ninyo the last two budget hearings natin, the unfilled position is about 120,000. We were able to reduce it dahil yung continuous hiring natin. Yung iba po riyo mababakante in the middle of the school year simply because of the retirement, resignation ng mga teachers po natin pero continuous po ‘yung hiring natin."
In Translation: If you were able to notice in the last two budget hearings, the unfilled positions are about 120,000. We were able to reduce it because of our continuous hiring. There are others that would see vacancy in the middle of the school year because of the retirement and the resignation of our teachers. Nevertheless, our hiring would still continue.
No Budget For Hiring Teachers or Tutors
In the latest hearing, the DepEd also mentioned that they have no budget for the hiring of para-teachers or tutors for distance learning in the proposed budget of the year 2021.
Annalyn Sevilla, DepEd Undersecretary, said that what the Department is focused on is the creation of regular teaching positions; she said that that's what they plan on doing next year.
Read: Teachers’ Salary Increase in 2021, Ensured by DepEd
The question [of] whether there is a 2021 budget line item on the hiring [of para-teachers], there is none. What we have is the creation of the regular teaching positions and that’s what we are planning to do next year."
The Highest Allocation
If we were to look back at budget allocation, the Department of Budget and Management or the DBM, gave the largest allocation to the education sector. They gave it a P754.4 billion budget; this is substantially higher than the P650.2 billion allocation for the year 2020.
Mateo said that what this basically means is that school divisions and offices are hiring learner support aides to help the children and the parents.
Basically what it says is that schools division offices knowing the context by which they are operating are allowed to hire learner support aides to help the parents as well as the guardians to ensure that children will continue."
Read: The DepEd Plans to Hire Retired and Displaced Teachers as Tutors
Should you be not aware, the hundreds of billions of budget is not for the DepEd alone; it also covers and involves the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority or TESDA, the Commission on Higher Education or CHED, as well as other State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) nationwide.
In case you're looking for a job, the DepEd is looking for over 65,000 teachers in the coming school year (A.Y. 2021). This would help out tens of thousands of people who are yet to have jobs because of the pandemic.
Transition to Distance or Blended Learning
We all know that the DepEd is cooking up a few different ways on how children can continue their education amidst the infamous pandemic. They were able to come up with the blended or distance learning but it's still not perfect.
Read: Department of Education (DepEd) Teachers Will Get Hazard Pay and Other Benefit Packages
If you're interested, stay tuned and wait for the announcements that would be made regarding this particular staff hunt. The department is yet to release all the wanted information about their plan of hiring more than 60K teaching and non-teaching staff.
What are your thoughts and your insights about the fact that the DepEd is looking for over 65,000 teachers in the coming academic year? Would this suffice the gap that our country has in terms of education? Can hiring teaching personnel give students the education that they need?
Source/s: The Philippine Daily Inquirer | GMA Network
Leave a Reply