The Davao City Council has endorsed to the office of President Rodrigo R. Duterte a petition of the Davao Association of Private Schools and Administrators seeking government subsidy for the salaries of private school teachers.
“We are reaching out to President Duterte to consider the plight of of private schools considering that it is a problem shared nationwide,” Councilor Pilar Braga told the Pulong-Pulong ni Pulong on Tuesday at the City Council’s lounge.
This is a big problem faced by our private schools and it should be addressed by our President as well as the Department of Education,” she said.
The DAPRISA, in a petition addressed to the City Council, proposed that the Educational Service Contracting and its accompanying Teacher’s Salary Subsidy shall made applicable to all private school teachers through the K to 12 levels.
It also proposed that the amount of the TSS shall increase to at least one-half of the amount of the salary given to public school teachers, with the remaining half of the salary to be the responsibility of the private schools.
Braga said lamented that what she described as a massive loss experienced by private institutions, with their trained teachers leaving for public schools for higher compensation.
Braga read the resolution supporting and endorsing the position paper of DAPRISA to President Roa Duterte for his consideration.
“It is common knowledge that the compensation package for the public school teachers is the primordial reason why many teachers from the private schools will abandon their commitments to educate the students in the private institutions in order to join the bandwagon of the well-compensated teachers in the public school is very significant, the teachers who dream for a greener pasture cannot be at fault,” said Braga.
“The loss on the part of the private schools is alarming, continuing, substantial and painful due to the fact that these trained teachers have often been the beneficiaries of the year-round short/long-term trainings and a number of formation programs,” she said.
Braga said that every year, over one third of teachers leave the private schools even before the end of their contract.
“The salary of our public school is really different from the private, the public salary now is ranging to more or less 19 thousands and private are only more or less 10 thousand really big differences,” she added.
She added that the position paper of the Davao Association of Private Schools and Administrators has been endorsed to President Duterte for his consideration.
“Our request is already in President Duterte to subsidize the salaries of private school teacher to the level of public school teachers” said Braga.
