A legislator who represents the education sector in the House of Representatives on Wednesday asked incoming President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to keep in mind the call of public school teachers for a pay hike when he assumes office at noon on Thursday.
Assistant Minority Leader France Castro at the same time welcomed Executive Order 174 signed by President Duterte establishing the expanded career progression system for public school teachers.
“The teachers welcome the expanded career progression system for the colleagues in the public schools but this should not be a substitute for the demand to upgrade their salary grade from SG 11 to SG 15,” Castro said.
Castro said the teachers have been left behind other professionals in the government as far as pay is concerned.
The Nurse 1 is SG 15 already, the policemen get more than P29,600 already as base pay of patrolman. This is an injustice to teachers who have the same qualifications and are given more work than their mandated job of teaching,” Castro said.
“We are glad that EO 174 also expanded the career progression for Master Teachers and Principals. We urge the Department of Budget and Management to clarify how many items will be created for each position,” she said.
“We support the proposal of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers-Philippines on the following measures and we will file appropriate House bills and resolutions in the 19th Congress:
*Upgrade the salary levels of Teacher I, II, and III positions from the current SG 11, 12, and 13 to SG 15, 16, and 17 respectively;
*Scrap RPMS-PPST and develop a more accurate and effective performance evaluation system through a truly democratic and consultative process;
*Implement an automatic reclassification system based on the existing qualifications of teachers;
*Set up an open and fair promotions/reclassification system where teachers are free to develop and upgrade their own existing items and are not restricted by item limitations;
*Create a free master’s/doctoral education program for teachers;
*Elimination of the non-teaching duties assigned to teachers by creating ample items for and hiring education support personnel up to the school level.”