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EDUCATION Secretary Jesli Lapus on Tuesday assured the
public there are enough teachers for public elementary
and secondary schools nationwide.
Lapus’s
assurance followed reports that higher tuition is
forcing more students from the private sector to
transfer to public schools, where teachers, in turn,
could be in short supply.
Lapus
said the current teacher-student ratio in public schools
stood at 1:36 and this would be further augmented by the
hiring of 10,868 teachers to add to the current teaching
complement of 480,433.
“We are
gaining in our efforts to address these problems
especially since 1.9 million Filipinos are added to our
population on an annual basis and who in a few years
will be of school age. I assure the public that there is
no shortage of teachers in the country,” Lapus said,
even as he noted the outflow of teachers taking on
overseas jobs as domestic help and caregivers.
The
Department of Education (DepEd) said about 30,000 new
graduates take the Licensure Examinations for Teachers
(LET) annually, making up for whatever shortfall or
outflow. In the area of creating new teacher items,
Lapus said this year the department has already set
17,000 new items—from the 2007 and 2006 figures of 16,
334 and 8,167 respectively.
Priority
will be given by DepEd to hiring graduates who are
majors in English, mathematics and science.
To
further improve school management, DepEd has reduced the
number of schools without principals this school year.
“For
2008, we hope to further decrease the number of public
schools without principals from last year’s 49 percent
or about 20,741 of the total through the creation of
3,903 new items, the biggest since 2002,” Lapus said.
Earlier,
Lapus allayed fears of a classroom shortage this school
year. He said the additional 10,472 classrooms now being
erected should be able to address this “migration” or
surge of students moving out of the more expensive
private-school institutions.
Current
inventory of class rooms stands at 421, 034.
The
DepEd is aiming at reaching a classroom-student ratio of
1:45 this school year, from the previous 1:50. At least
15,215 classrooms were also built last year, from the
2006 figures of 14,887 classrooms; while an additional
12, 573 were repaired or rehabilitated.
He said
DepEd is also tapping the help of the local government
units and the private sector to speed up the
construction of classrooms to accommodate the
ever-growing number of students.
In Metro
Manila, DepEd-NCR director Teresita Domalanta said 1,
522 school buildings are being constructed for turnover
to the department in time for next week’s opening.
For this
school year, DepEd-NCR estimates a 2-percent increase in
enrollment in the public sector from the previous year’s
1.824 million.
Overall,
DepEd estimates this year’s enrollment to reach 21.66
million, of which 18.81 million are in the public
elementary and secondary level, while 2. 85 million are
projected to enroll in private schools.
In the
preschool level, 640,000 will go to public schools and
42,000, in private schools. |
