Pursuant to the mandate of President Marcos, Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara and other officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) signed on Friday the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) on the Expanded Career Progression System for public school teachers.
Established by virtue of Executive Order (EO) No. 174 signed by former President Rodrigo Duterte on June 23, 2022, the IRR aims to promote the professional development of state educators through their career advancement.
The EO allows the creation of five new teaching positions, where teachers can be promoted further, based on the merits of their service. Should they fulfill the necessary requirements to become Master Teacher 1, they can also have the option to pursue an administrative track, if they wish to do so.
The IRR, which enforces the state policy, reflects the marching order of President Marcos to the DepEd during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday, July 22. Angara echoed the administration’s desire to ‘take care of teachers’ in reforming the education system.
The DepEd chief also assured that this would benefit teachers in their mission to educate our students, provided that they would not have to find better opportunities elsewhere to progress in their careers.
“This will not be time-based. They won’t have to wait for our teachers to be promoted for that long. This is also not position-based; meaning, that they won’t have to move to other schools. This would also help them to focus on their careers simply to get a higher position,” Angara emphasized.
While the changes brought by the policy take ‘years’ to materialize, DepEd Undersecretary for Human Resource and Organizational Development Wilfredo Cabral said that they are working to implement the order by next year.
“We will only need to issue a few supplementary policies for operationalization. While the reclassification process continues for 140,000 teachers, 90,000 of which will come from the Career Progression,” Cabral explained in a press conference.
“All issuances that are related will be done within the year, so that teachers under the said program will be promoted next year,” he later added.
Also present at the ceremonial signing of the IRR were Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo, Civil Service Commission (CSC) Commissioner Ryan Alvin Acosta, and Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) Chairperson Charito Zamora.
Pangandaman said that the implementation of EO 174 coincides with the salary adjustment for teachers as a result of her dialogue with teachers’ groups.
Funds for salary adjustment and medical allowance will be included in next year’s proposed budget for education, which amounts to P6.1-billion.
“The next year’s budget (for Education) can be well-defended by Secretary Sonny (Angara),” Pangandaman assured.
Antonio Tinio, former representative for ACT Teachers’ party-list, hailed the signing of the IRR, saying this fulfills one of their demands.
“Generally, this is a significant win for teachers because teachers having no promotions is a problem. There are existing concerns, still, but this is an important development,” Tinio told the Manila Standard.
Benjo Basas, chairman of Teachers’ Dignity Coalition, also responded positively to this development, saying that this has been long overdue.
“We have waited for this policy to happen since the term of (former DepEd) Secretary Jesli Lapus. Despite the delays after EO 174 was signed in 2022, we are still happy with this development,” he commented.
