MANILA, Philippines — Around 5,000 new non-teaching positions have been created under the Department of Education to ease the administrative burden of public school teachers, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte said.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) approved last week the creation of 5,000 non-teaching items, consisting of 3,500 administrative officer (AO) II positions and 1,500 project development officer (PDO) I positions.
These two entry-level positions will get a monthly salary of SG 11 or P27,000.
During the first day of the National Teachers’ Month on Tuesday, Duterte said the new non-teaching items would soon “relieve the administrative responsibilities” that prevent teachers from focusing on classroom instruction.
The DepEd secretary said that they will release interim guidelines to reduce teachers’ administrative tasks.
Duterte added that “there is more to come” as the department has also requested a “higher allocation for teaching overload pay” with the guidelines vetted by the DBM and the Civil Service Commission.
“We can never put a monetary value on your contributions to the country,” Duterte addressed teachers at a school in Tagbilaran City during an event kicking off the month-long celebration.
According to the DBM, the non-teaching items will be deployed in various Schools Division Offices in the following regions: Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), CARAGA, National Capital Region (NCR), Regions I, II, III, IV-A, IV-B, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, and XII.
Public school teachers have long been burdened with clerical tasks that typically sideline them from solely focusing on students’ learning. The hours they spend finishing administrative work also result in extended work hours despite the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers mandating only six-hour work days.
A 2019 study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies titled "Pressures on Public School Teachers and Implications on Quality" cautioned against giving public school teachers administrative tasks as these distract them from their core function of effective teaching.
Public school teachers are often saddled with carrying out tasks in various government programs, such as mass immunizations, community mapping, conditional cash transfer, deworming, feeding, population census, antidrug, and election, the PIDS study said. — with reports by Ian Nicole Cigaral
