ANGARA URGES HIRING OF MORE TEACHERS,
SEEKS EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Senator Edgardo J. Angara lauded the additional budget in the recently ratified 2011 national budget which will allow the Department of Education's (DepEd) to hire more teachers, saying that "this is a good start in addressing the scarcity of our public school teachers, classrooms and books".

An additional P700-Million for the hiring of 5,000 more public school teachers was announced as the Senate ratified HB 301 or the General Appropriations Bill on Monday. The initial request for 10,000 new teachers was doubled to 20,000 by Angara during the budget hearings in November, bringing the total to 25,000 new educators in the coming year.

"The new DepEd secretary already has a lot on his plate-including the ever-present problem of the lack of educators in our public school system. I believe this insertion to their department's budget is a significant step towards solving that," he said.

Angara, head of the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture, also stressed the importance of early childhood education as a way to improve the school system in the Philippines. He authored the Pre-School Development Bill which seeks to give children up to 6 years old access to early childhood care and development programs.

This nationwide preschool program would be implemented by the barangay daycare centers with appropriate support from the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Private volunteers and non-government organizations may also be tapped.

According to Angara, our children learn all the fundamentals early on-in the context of education, "the earlier, the better".

"It has been proven that this kind of early education enables the learner to retain more knowledge later in life. These pre-school programs also prepare the children for formal schooling through intellectual and skill stimulation, as well as the formation of values and principles," stated Angara.

Senate Bill No. 2024, "Institutionalizing Pre-School Education, Increasing the Monthly Compensation of Day Care Workers and for Other Purposes" was filed in the 15th Congress. This bill has gone through the first reading and was referred to its Committees.