CAMP DANGWA, La Trinidad —Interior and Local Government Secretary Mel Cenen Sarmiento directed local chief executives nationwide to stop using their respective school board funds in the hiring of casual teachers since the government will fully invest in employing teachers in order to pave the way for the implementation of the controversial K to 12 basic education program that will ensure the competitiveness of graduates from Philippine schools in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community.
Sarmiento said that the education department will hire a total of 39,900 teachers before the end of the year and another 60,000 teachers next year.
“Local governments can now use their respective school board funds for other better initiatives apart from hiring casual teachers. We have to ease the burden from the local governments because it is the obligation of the government to hire teachers,” Sarmiento stressed.
Sarmiento also said school buildings and classrooms will be no longer a separate problem for municipal, city and provincial governments because the education department will be building more than 35,000 classrooms annually which will definitely help in reducing the congestions in urban centers when the K to 12 basic education program will be implemented.
Sarmiento explained that in the hiring of the available teaching positions in the next two years, the localization policy will be implemented whereby a teacher who comes from the host community will be prioritized in the hiring in order to guarantee their availability at all times.
At the same time, a teacher, who holds a temporary teaching position and teachers in the school where he or she comes from, will be the one to be prioritized for permanency over and above others, thus, the need for local governments to start recommending the casual teachers for hiring by the education department.
The DILG official challenged local governments to use their respective school board funds for other concrete education projects.