Hike teachers' pay instead of K to 12 program, TDC tells P-Noy

MANILA, Philippines - Public school teachers want the Aquino administration to further hike their pay instead of pushing ahead with the implementation of the Department of Education’s ambitious K (Kindergarten) to 12 basic education curriculum (BEC) reform program that will add two years of senior high school in 2016.

The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC), a federation of public school teachers’ associations all over the country, said increasing public school teachers’ salary was “far more important” than the proposed K to 12 program of DepEd.

Basas said that the Aquino government should focus on the discussion of several bills filed in Congress seeking to hike teachers’ salary.

It will be recalled that public school teachers’ salaries had just seen a hefty hike last year with the enactment of a law upgrading government workers’ salary. The hike brought the salary of a Teacher I to P18,500 a month.

Basas noted that several bills were proposed since the opening of the 15th Congress, and the most common are proposals that seek to upgrade the salaries of public school teachers from the current Salary Grade 11 (SG-11) to higher positions under Salary Standardization Law 3 (SSL-3), which the full implementation has been granted to government employees last month.

“We appreciate any proposal that seeks to augment the living standard of our teachers because this is a testament that the legislators know what is due the teachers, and the government recognizes its mistake for putting us in the very low position in government classification,” Basas said.

“It seems that lawmakers from all parties are united in their desire to provide better compensation package for public school teachers and this is a statement that Malacanang cannot ignore. The President should act swiftly on these proposals instead of selling the idea to expand the basic education through K to 12, which is not only unpopular, but ambitious, unnecessary and unrealistic as well,” Basas furthered.