Bill seeks hike in monthly salary of teachers

MANILA, Philippines - A bill in the Senate is seeking to increase the monthly salary of teachers in public elementary and secondary schools from P18,549 to P33,859.

Senate Bill 61 aims to upgrade their minimum salary grade level  from 11 to 19.

Priority must be given to the welfare of hardworking teachers who are molders of the future of children, according to Sen. Juan Edgardo  Angara, an advocate of educational reforms.

“Teachers are a special breed and to teach is a special calling,” he said. “One writer once said, ‘Students are actually better off in a bad school with an excellent teacher, than in an excellent school with a bad teacher,’” he said.

Angara has also filed a bill seeking to provide grants and scholarship with return of service agreements to academic and non-academic personnel to allow them to upgrade their qualification through masteral or doctoral studies.

Teachers must be retained to meet the instructional aptitude needed to teach an entirely new curriculum provided under the K-to-12 program, he added.

Scholarships and grants will also attract new teachers and researchers to the higher education sector, Angara said.

“I think every teacher realizes deep in their heart that they are not doing this for personal glory or for personal riches but definitely, to leave a legacy,” he said.

“This is the only profession where one’s success is measured based on the success of others.”

When he was a member of the House of Representatives, Angara was one of the authors of the Salary Standardization Law III that raised the salary of public school teachers in 2012.