ACT spearheads teachers' 'National Chalk Holiday'

MANILA, Philippines - The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said public school teachers will hold a “National Chalk Holiday” in public schools all over the country on Sept. 16 to press for an increase in the current yearly P700 chalk allowance of teachers to P2,000.

Benjie Valbuena, ACT vice chairperson, said that public school teachers will not be using chalk in their classroom lectures on the said day.

Valbuena said that the Department of Education has apparently neglected to ensure that teachers are given adequate funds to supply themselves with chalk, which he said was an indispensable tool of teachers in the classroom.

“The P700 chalk allowance for one school year is really not enough especially since teachers use the allowance for other items they need to teach,” Valbuena said.

With the P700 budget for chalk for one year, the fund translates to roughly a subsidy of P3.50 per school day, to purchase chalk and other supplies for their classes. Rasing it up to P2,000, will make the daily subsidy P9.85 per day.

This increase would require a total P1 billion budget as allowance for some 500,000 public school teachers, almost three times the current chalk fund of P350,000, ACT said.

ACT said that DepEd chief, Secretary Armin Luistro had earlier expressed openness to hiking the chalk allowance but this would entail Congress raising the budget of DepEd for 2012.

“Of course, we will increase the chalk allowance if we are granted an increase in the budget,” Luistro said when asked about calls to raise the annual subsidy by teachers.

ACT is spearheading a campaign called ACT NOW for Greater Education Budget which would allow hikes in certain teachers’ allowances and allow DepEd to address acute shortages in classrooms, textbooks, school furniture and other resources.