The Marcos administration has approved the creation of 16,000 new teaching positions for the upcoming school year—up from the 10,000 annually created under the leadership of former Education Secretary Sara Duterte.
Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro said the move aligns with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive to strengthen the education system and address the shortage of public school teachers.
“This is the President’s way of ensuring every student gets the attention they need to improve their education. The goal is to reduce class sizes and ease the workload of current teachers,” Castro said in a Palace briefing Monday.
The Department of Education (DepEd) has allocated P4.19 billion from its proposed 2025 budget to fund the initiative. Of the 16,000 new positions, 15,343 are for Teacher I (Salary Grade 11), 157 for Special Science Teachers (SG 13), and 500 for Special Education Teachers (SG 14), according to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
The new teachers are expected to be in place by the start of the 2025–2026 school year, although no specific timeline for hiring has been announced.
Meanwhile, Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez urged Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara and DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman to allocate at least half of the new positions to Mindanao to help close regional education gaps.
“Mindanao needs 8,000 of these teaching positions to catch up with Luzon and the Visayas in terms of literacy,” Rodriguez said, citing a Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) report indicating high rates of functional illiteracy in the region.
The PSA report found that 18.9 million Filipinos who completed secondary education between 2019 and 2024 could read and write but struggled with comprehension. Eight of the 10 provinces with the highest basic illiteracy rates are in Mindanao, with Tawi-Tawi leading at 36 percent.
Rodriguez stressed the need for more teachers, training, infrastructure, and equipment in the south: “Our education officials cannot solve this problem without prioritizing Mindanao.”
In addition to hiring more teachers, the Palace said it is also prioritizing the construction of additional classrooms to improve learning environments and accommodate growing student populations.