All of my mother’s sisters were public school teachers, one of them retired as principal of an elementary school in one of the highland towns of Negros Oriental. Last Christmas, during the usual chitchat with the elder members of the family, my titas inadvertently broached on the topic of my compensation. Feeling that it is in poor taste to tell them the exact figure, I just gave them a range and let their imaginations do the rest of the work. Since I work for a multinational, I must say that I am reasonably well-compensated. Needless to say, there was an uncomfortable silence (at least for me) that ensued my response. “When will public school teachers ever earn that much?” remarked one of my titas. This got me thinking: “In this day and age, what incentive does one really have to become a public school teacher?”
We have heard over and over that passion is what drives one to choose to become a teacher, that teaching is a calling much like priesthood or medicine. However, we must not rely on these romanticized notions about teaching to provide our public schools with a steady supply of educators. As much as teachers would want to feed the fires of their vocation, it is a stark reality that the basic need of putting food on the table comes first. Because of this, teachers either leave the education profession entirely or work overseas and high school graduates may not even consider studying to become teachers. Ultimately, it is the public school students, especially the ones in depressed or rural areas who are left hungry for knowledge and robbed of the opportunities that an education can promise.
This got me thinking further: “What is our government doing about this?” Last year, the upper house finally passed Senate Bill 2408 which seeks to grant a P9000 across-the-board salary increase for all public school teachers and non-teaching personnel. Prior to this, the entry-level salary of public school teachers was P10933 per month. This was about P9000 lower than the monthly family living wage of P19404 as determined by the National Wages and Productivity Commission.
Fresh out of college, an education graduate and would-be breadwinner is looking for a job. If he opts to work in a call center, he can earn a starting basic salary of P25000 a month. On top of this are transportation and meal allowances, overtime, and night differential pay. Senate Bill 2408 provides for a P1000 annual medical check-up allowance, an outsourcing company is most likely to shoulder the costs of personnel annual medical check-ups via HMO. Based on these numbers, I will not be surprised why a would-be teacher would pick up a telephone headset instead of a piece of chalk and that he would rather face a computer monitor instead of a roomful of students.
We have heard over and over that passion is what drives one to choose to become a teacher, that teaching is a calling much like priesthood or medicine. However, we must not rely on these romanticized notions about teaching to provide our public schools with a steady supply of educators. As much as teachers would want to feed the fires of their vocation, it is a stark reality that the basic need of putting food on the table comes first. Because of this, teachers either leave the education profession entirely or work overseas and high school graduates may not even consider studying to become teachers. Ultimately, it is the public school students, especially the ones in depressed or rural areas who are left hungry for knowledge and robbed of the opportunities that an education can promise.
This got me thinking further: “What is our government doing about this?” Last year, the upper house finally passed Senate Bill 2408 which seeks to grant a P9000 across-the-board salary increase for all public school teachers and non-teaching personnel. Prior to this, the entry-level salary of public school teachers was P10933 per month. This was about P9000 lower than the monthly family living wage of P19404 as determined by the National Wages and Productivity Commission.
Fresh out of college, an education graduate and would-be breadwinner is looking for a job. If he opts to work in a call center, he can earn a starting basic salary of P25000 a month. On top of this are transportation and meal allowances, overtime, and night differential pay. Senate Bill 2408 provides for a P1000 annual medical check-up allowance, an outsourcing company is most likely to shoulder the costs of personnel annual medical check-ups via HMO. Based on these numbers, I will not be surprised why a would-be teacher would pick up a telephone headset instead of a piece of chalk and that he would rather face a computer monitor instead of a roomful of students.
Our Constitution expressly states that "The State shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education to ensure that teaching will attract and retain its rightful share of the best available talents through adequate remuneration and other means of job satisfaction and fulfillment." However, quoting Sen. Chiz Escudero, "The highest budgetary priority being given money-wise is debt servicing. The second is the Internal Revenue Allotment or IRA of government units. The DepEd only ranks third. In 2009, the budget allocation for education was increased to P157.9 billion. This is a very meager amount compared to the P600 billion for paying off national debt, or the P260 billion for the Internal Revenue Allotment of government units.” I suppose the leaders of this country have driven us between a rock (national debt) and a hard place (education), though leaving us with a stick (IRA rationalization) to wedge us out.
In the spirit of the upcoming presidential elections, I checked what some of the leading presidential candidates have to say. Sen. Nonoy Aquino's Transformational Leadership Platform states: “From relegating education to just one of many concerns to making education to making education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness." Poetic but vague. It begs the question "How are you going to do it?". In Gibo Teodoro's website, he has these 2 agenda under Education: Student Loan Program, Preparing Our Children for the Future. A little bit more specific but does not really address the issue. Sen. Manny Villar's website is down.
RA 4670 (Magna Carta for Public School Teachers) provides that public school teachers' salaries "shall compare favorably with those paid in other occupations requiring equivalent or similar qualifications, training and abilities" and "they shall be such as to inspire teachers a reasonable standard of life for teachers and their families." Calling to mind again the call center example, this Law has long been violated.
In our parents' generation, being a maestra accords one a high regard in society. Aside from this, one is able to raise a family, send children to school and comfortably retire by being a teacher. However, we are now in different times and globalization has inadvertently siphoned teachers from the public schools to the concrete jungles or to schools abroad. It eludes my understanding that our government appears to struggle with this reality and has somehow failed to exercise a bit of foresight, it being led by an economist who at one time was also a teacher.
