DepEd chief reports on first month, prioritizes Adopt-A-School
Pasig City (1 September) — Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Jesli Lapus today reported about his first month as education chief and expressed optimism about addressing the many problems facing Philippine education.
“The crisis in Philippine education is about a systems failure. But I’m optimistic that we can address this if we manage our programs and projects better, generate more resources from both the private and public sectors and we should look into how we can improve the welfare of our teachers and students,” said Secretary Lapus.
He credited the department for many innovative programs that have helped ease the strain on public schools such as the Every Child A Reader Program, Alternative Learning Systems, Early Childhood Care, Library Hubs, Schools First Initative and Brigada Eskwela.
“We need to take these programs on a nationwide scale and enjoin all education stakeholders to be actively involved. We all have a stake in this,” he said.
“That’s why we’re working on further increasing the private sector efforts to focus their corporate social responsibility programs on education and we’re lobbying for more public funding. We need to invest more in education,” he added.
ADOPT-A-SCHOOL
One of Secretary Lapus’ priority is to relaunch DepEd’s Adopt-A-School program, which, under Republic Act 8525, provides a means for the private sector to participate and donate to basic education, with tax incentives of up to 150 percent. He plans to enhance the program so it can generate more funds for public education.
In his first month, Secretary Lapus actively engaged various stakeholders from the private sector and urged them to be involved in education. Yesterday alone, he recieved P600,000 worth of pledges from his Rotary Club of Manila where he gave a talk about Adopt-A-School.
He also reported that the P9.5-billion supplemental budget for the Department of Education has already been approved in Congress and urged his colleagues in the Senate to also do the same. Secretary Lapus also expressed gratitude for the support the Department of Education has been getting from both private and public sectors.
TEACHER WELFARE
As far as teacher welfare is concerned, Secretary Lapus has met with various teachers groups and have assured them of the department’s support for their needs.
In DepEd’s supplemental budget alone, P300-million is allocated for unpaid step increments and other benefits of teaching and non-teaching personnel; P497.3-million is allocated for training; P651.3-million is allocated for the annualization of the salaries and other compensation benefits of teaching positions created in 2005; P1.047-billion is allocated for the creation of new teaching and non-teaching positions; and P49.7-million is allocated for the creation of non-teaching items for new/interim schools division offices, including MOOE.
In the national government’s P46-billion supplemental budget, P3.3-billion is also being allocated by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to pay for the government’s overall share of GSIS retirement and life insurance premiums from as far back as 1997 and 1998. This amount includes interests, which are being deducted from the retirement pay of retiring employees. Around P1-billion of that amount represents the government share in DepEd employees contribution.