Half of public school teachers not registered with PRC — Senator

Nearly half of the country’s estimated 1.4 million public school teachers are not registered with the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC), Sen. Francis Pangilinan said yesterday.

Pangilinan, acting chairman of the Senate committee on education, said that based on the information his committee has gathered, "only about 600,000 to 700,000 public school teachers were able to register at the PRC (before) the prescribed deadline of September 2000."

He said that should these unregistered public school teachers — from elementary, high school and college levels — be caught teaching despite not being certified by the PRC, they face imprisonment and a fine of P20,000 or higher.

Pangilinan said Republic Act 7836, or the Philippine Teachers’ Professionalization Act of 1994, provides that all applicants for registration as professional teachers are required to undergo a written examination.

The licensure exams for teachers are conducted yearly by the PRC. The license is required of all applicants for a teaching position at a public school run by the Department of Education, according to Antonio Tinio, president of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers.

The PRC requires a valid certificate of registration and a valid professional license before a person can teach. RA 7836, however, provides for exceptions to this rule, wherein a person can be registered as a professional teacher without having passed a written examination. One of these exceptions is the number of years a person has been a teacher prior to the enactment of RA 7836. - Jose Rodel Clapano