With the ARMM elections moved to 2013, Aurora representative Edgardo M. Angara is proposing that the P1.2 billion allocated for the scrapped polls be used to hire more kindergarten teachers.
“There‘s a P1.2 billion savings from the postponement of the elections. It’s time to distribute the dividend. I say, we give it to education, by employing more teachers for our children in kindergarten,” Angara said.
He added that hiring 9,700 kindergarten teachers immediately will entail P1.2 billion for their July to December pay, the sum of which corresponds to the amount saved from the postponement of the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
“This is one good conversion that must be pursued. If we’re looking for a redeeming value in the postponement of the elections, then rechanneling its budget to education is our best bet,” Angara said.
An estimated 2.4 million five-year-olds were expected to be enrolled in public schools kindergarten this month which has been made “free, universal and compulsory” under the government’s reform K+12 basic education platform.
Angara explained that the additional enrollees will trigger a need for at least 30,000 teachers, assuming that one teacher will handle a morning and an afternoon class of 40 pupils each. But this year, government will hire only 10,000 teachers, mainly to fill vacancies in public elementary and high schools. In fact, the beginning-of-the-school-year estimate of a shortage of 56,919 teachers did not take into account the new personnel needed for kindergarten.
Angara added that converting the P1.2 billion saved from the ARMM polls and using it to recruit teachers will result in the hiring of mentors for about 776,000 kindergarten pupils.
Under the 2011 national budget, P480 million had been appropriated for the conduct of automated polls in the autonomous region. But, according to Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes, actual projected cost is P1.2 billion and that the Department of Budget and Management has given the Comelec the go-signal to plug the difference using the poll body’s savings in the previous years.
Angara clarified further that even without the scrapping of the ARMM polls, the government could still fund the deployment of more teachers to kindergarten classes.
