Sen. Francis Escudero has refiled a measure that would lower the mandatory retirement age of employees at the Department of Education.
Senate Bill No. 58 seeks to set the retirement age of regular DepEd employees, including public school teachers, to 60 years old from 65, Escudero said in a statement.
This developed as Senator Win Gatchalian filed several measures in consonance with the education priorities of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture, Gatchalian guaranteed he would help the Marcos administration bring quality education to the Filipino youth.
“If enacted into law, this proposed legislation will benefit hundreds and thousands of retirable DepEd personnel, both teaching and non-teaching, who would want to spend the prime of their lives doing other occupations other than their usual functions in the government,” said Escudero, who chairs the Senate Committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education.
But the bill allows a DepEd employee to serve until 65 if they have less than 15 years of service, subject to existing civil service policies and Government Service Insurance System rules, said the senator, who filed the same measure during the 17th Congress.
The DepEd has nearly a million employees, and Escudero said the measure would help in the “revitalization” of the department.
The agency “needs skills updating and professional advancement of their personnel in order that services rendered at the department will be restructured and modernized,” he added
“This measure shall also open the doors of opportunities to young teachers and non-teaching aspirants for the jobs at the education department,” Escudero said.
For his part, Gatchalian has filed Proposed Senate Resolution No. 5, which seeks a Senate inquiry on the status of the implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 or the K to 12 Law (Republic Act No. 10533).
The proposed review seeks to identify strategic solutions to improve the implementation of the law, especially amidst growing dissatisfaction over the K to 12 system.
Gatchalian also echoed the President’s call in his State of the Nation Address that the Philippines should do better in international rankings when it comes to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
Results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) 2019 show that only 13% and 19% of Grade 4 students in the Philippines meet the minimum benchmark in Science and Math, respectively.
Gatchalian’s Senate Bill No.476 or the Equitable Access to Math and Science Education Act seeks to establish accessible math and science high schools across the Philippines, particularly in all provinces that do not have at least one public math and science high school.
Considering that teachers are one of the most important factors in education, the senator is also seeking the full and proper implementation of the Excellence in Teacher Education Act or Republic Act No. 11713.
This would improve the quality of teacher training and education in the country, said Gatchalian, who also filed Senate Bill No. 383 or the Digital Transformation in Basic Education Act.
The senator also filed Senate Bill No. 474 or the One Learner One Laptop Act, which will mandate the Department of Education (DepEd) to provide a laptop for every learner enrolled under the K to 12 program in public schools.
