DepEd to Hire 9,650 New Teachers in 2023 as Group Urges 30,000 Yearly Hires

DepEd to Hire 9,650 New Teachers in 2023 as Group Urges 30,000 Yearly Hires

– DepEd plans to hire 9,650 new teachers in 2023 to address the ongoing teacher shortage.

– Last year, DepEd hired 11,580 teachers and created 5,000 administrative officer positions to support them.

– The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) urges DepEd to hire 30,000 teachers yearly until 2028 to improve education quality.

– According to ACT, an estimated 147,000 teachers are needed to reduce class sizes to 35 students and ensure effective teaching.

– ACT highlights bureaucratic red tape as a hindrance to the speedy hiring of teachers and calls for P14 billion funding to support the initiative.

DepEd to hire 9,650 new teachers in 2023

Around 9,650 new teachers are expected to be hired by the Department of Education (DepEd) this year, according to its spokesperson.

 

“Ayon sa ating pag-uusap with our HR, ang target talaga natin, kasi meron tayong teacher items… we are targeting to hire around 9,650 ‘yung target natin for this year. Of course, subject to the normal application process dahil civil servants po ang ating mga teachers,” DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa told reporters. 

 

One of the challenges the DepEd is a lack of teachers, on top of a shortage of school infrastructure and furniture.

 

Last year, the DepEd hired 11,580 teachers, while 5,000 administrative officer positions were created to relieve teachers of their administrative duties.

DepEd urged to hire 30, 000 Teachers yearly

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers urged the Department of Education to hire 30,000 new teachers each year until 2028 to resolve the teacher shortage and improve the quality of education.

ACT made the statement after Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte’s pronouncement that the agency plans to hire new teachers every year.

“At present, we are short of 147,000 teachers to decisively reduce the class size to 35 students and ensure that our teachers can effectively teach and monitor the progress of each of our learners. Approximately, we need to hire 25,000 new teachers yearly until 2028 to eradicate the shortage, and an additional 5,000 new teachers to cover the yearly increase in enrolment, which totals to a requirement of 30,000 new teachers yearly,” Vladimer Quetua, the group’s chairperson, said.

Quetua added that the hiring of new teachers each year is not new.

“However, these were only enough to provide for new teachers for the increase in the learner population, and not to cut down the class size to improve education quality.” Quetua said.

ACT said the government will need around P14 billion to hire 30,000 teachers.

“We are sure the people’s taxes can support this if only the government would give due premium to education,” Quetua said

“The DepEd also needs to resolve the bureaucratic red tape that hinders speedy hiring of teachers. The agency could not even fill up all its vacant teaching items while thousands of applicants have been deemed qualified based on its Registry of Qualified Applicants,” he added.