An excess of
qualified teachers?

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Managing Editor ANTONIETA B. LOPEZ Business Editor ODETTE MONTELIBANO Desk Editor MARY ANN BARCELONA Advertising Coordinator RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete

ANDRES R. LEONARDIA Managing Director

A few days ago, it was announced that some 34,000 had passed the national teachers examination in the country. That means a reserve of so many mentors for both the public and private education sectors, although the fact that they had taken, and hurdled the government tests, means that the examinees are nursing hopes of getting into teaching jobs in schools run by the government. This is because qualifying in the national teachers examination and getting employed in any public elementary, high school, or college and university owned and run by the government will assure them of tenure and security of position.

Yesterday, however, it was also announced that the national budget for next year has positions only for some 9,200 new teachers to be hired for our public institutions. Will they come from the new crop of successful teacher examinees, or are the 9,200 already hired and just waiting in the wings for assignment or, worse, now working and still not included in the "plantillas" of the schools where they are assigned?

Anyway, 9,200 have assurance of working and we can tick off that number from our statistics on the unemployed. But what about the rest of the 34,000, can they be absorbed into the private institutions in the meantime? Or will they end up working as clerks, salespersons, private tutors, or even domestic helpers? How many thousands will soon be following the call of recruiters for jobs abroad that will not involve the use of the teaching skills they have acquired and qualified for by passing the examinations?

This is something that both the Education and Labor Department should work on very seriously if we are sincere in our pronouncements about the need to focus on the quality of education we want for the next generation.*