Press Release
April 25, 2019

PRIB: Angara wants to lower optional retirement age of public school teachers to 55

While instruction time is officially six hours a day, most teachers work much longer hours doing multiple responsibilities at school.

They even have duties during vacation months and even beyond the classroom and school premises.

It is in this context that Sen. Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara wants to lower the optional retirement age of public school teachers from 60 to 55 years old.

Angara, a re-electionist senator, has been pushing for wide-ranging reforms to improve the quality of life of public school teachers, which he said, would lead to a better quality of education in the country.

"The country does face a perennial shortage of teachers, but respect and humane consideration for our hardworking educators should prompt policymakers and legislators to at least lower the optional retirement age from today's 60 years old to 55 years old," Angara said.

The senator has promised to prioritize in his legislative agenda the needs of the education sector, especially of public school teachers so they can get better salary and improve their profession.

He said being a child of a teacher, his mother, and a known educator - the late Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, former president of the University of the Philippines - he knows the travails and sacrifices of teachers.

He said many public school teachers have expressed their desire to retire from their noble profession at an age earlier than what is currently set by the law, where mandatory retirement is at 65 years old.

Thus he filed Senate Bill 1872 lowering the optional retirement age of public school teachers to 55 years old amending Section 13-A of the Government Service Insurance System Act of 1997.

The has been pending at the committee level.

News Latest News Feed