Angara vows support for teachers’ salary raise, career progression

MANILA, Philippines – While he thumbed down proposals to raise entry-level salary of teachers to P50,000, newly installed Education Secretary Sonny Angara expressed confidence that teachers would see a better compensation package under the Marcos administration.

“It’s only a question of how much and when tataas ‘yan, pero I’m confident during the Marcos administration na tataas ang suweldo nila,” Angara said on the sidelines of his oath-taking ceremony in Malacañang Palace on Friday, July 19. (It’s only a question of how much and when it will be raised, but I’m confident that it will happen during the Marcos administration.)

Improving the welfare of teachers was one of the directives of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Angara. The President emphasized that the government should financially support teachers who have families to feed.

Teachers’ groups have been asking the government for a better compensation package. Currently, those who have Teacher 1 designation earn P27,000 per month. For years, many of them have been leaving the country in their quest for better pay and working conditions.

But Angara said that it is impossible to give teachers a P23,000 increase, adding that the government cannot afford it.

“Kung P23,000 [increase] times 900,000 [teachers], mas mataas pa ‘yun sa national budget, sa totoo lang,” he said. (If we give them a P23,000 increase, multiply that by 900,000 teachers, then the total amount would be higher than the national budget, truth be told.)

Aside from better compensation package, the education chief vowed to fix the career progression of teachers.

“Narinig natin ‘yung mga reklamo na ‘yung mga labing limang taon, Teacher 1 pa lang sila. So, ayusin namin ‘yung promotion system sa gobyerno. Tingnan natin ‘yung mga benepisyon nila, ‘yung teaching load nila,” Angara said during a separate event in Quezon City on Saturday, July 20.

(We heard complaints that there are teachers who have been in service for 15 years, yet still at Teacher 1 level. So we will fix the promotion system of the government. We will check their benefits and teaching load.)

Recognizing that teachers are the biggest input to students’ learning, Angara promised to provide more trainings to them so they could improve their teaching quality.

According to a World Bank study in 2016, the knowledge of teachers and the method they use to teach a subject were “important determinants of student learning outcomes in the Philippines.” The study showed that “knowledge of subject matter among elementary and high school teachers is low in most subjects.”

For instance, the World Bank study revealed that a mathematics teacher in high school was only able to answer 31% of the questions “completely correctly,” far from even half of the questions.

“Since the tests are closely aligned with the curriculum, the results suggest that teachers face significant challenges in teaching a considerable portion of the current K to 12 curriculum,” the study said.

Angara replaced Vice President Sara Duterte as education chief. She stepped down on June 19, effectively leaving the Marcos Cabinet. Duterte had said that she was resigning “out of concern for teachers and the Filipino youth.” – Rappler.com