UPGRADE LICENSURE PROCEDURES; SPUR STUDENTS,
TEACHERS CAREER DEV'T--ANGARA

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara has called on the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) to pursue and implement more extensive training programs and career development projects for students and licensure examinees in the country. This he highlighted yesterday at the budget hearing with PRC Chair Nicholas Lapeña, who raised the possibility for more development programs and studies for licensure examinees and passers.

"There have been so many studies and programs done to improve our teachers' capabilities and pursue student development projects already; but none of them are properly implemented," lamented Sen. Angara, former president of the University of the Philippines and author of many of the country's laws and bills on education and institutional development.

Lapeña disclosed that not all licensure tests are computerized, and that there is a low passing rate in teachers' licensure tests. He claimed such low performance is attributed to the fact that those who choose to take teacher education degrees usually belong to the lower bracket of students passing high school evaluation (such as the NSAT) or university admission tests. The higher half of such passers, he confessed, take up engineering, medicine, sciences, law and information technology. Lapeña also reported this can be attributed to the declining image of teachers and the low incentive system that they receive upon taking a career in teaching.

Sen. Angara intervened, "Teachers should defend their own kind so as to dispel the unfair treatment of teachers in the media," he commented on how the local and international media generalize the domestic workers in Asia to be "mostly" Filipino teachers simply seeking greener pastures abroad." He added, "It goes beyond monetary issue. Public school teachers are better paid now. Teachers are our beacon of hope in the country's education system, hence we must take care of them. That is why we have granted higher entry-level rates to our teachers that will eventually be as much as P18,500.00 in three years' time; before, they'd only get P1,000.00."

"What we really lack is training and improved career-development programs for our future teachers. We need to motivate our teachers to look at their performance and assess themselves if indeed they are competent enough for promotion and higher compensation. This way, we are breeding globally-competent educators that will shape an equally-competent workforce," noted Sen. Angara.

He concluded by calling on the PRC and relevant education and institutional agencies to gather existing studies and programs together and aggressively implement them to "prevent us from losing highly-skilled teachers in science, math and special education to industrialized countries that offer more attractive benefit packages, like the United States and Canada."