Fair promotion for public school teachers under new bill

A SUBSTITUTE bill for the Teacher Career Progression Act which will streamline career paths, merit-based promotion and compensation increase for public school teachers has been approved by the House Committee on Appropriations on second reading at the plenary.

Sponsored by Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo, chairman of the Committee on Basic Education and Culture, the Teacher Career Progression Bill seeks to institutionalize two career paths for public school teachers: classroom teaching and school administration.

Fair promotion for public school teachers under new bill

The bill also creates five additional higher positions with corresponding remunerations.

“This ensures that those whose passion is actual teaching will remain in classrooms, yet still attain the income of a school head,” the lawmaker said.

The bill also advocates for promotion based on merit and competence.

“We are going to urge the Department of Education (DepEd) to leave those very difficult promotion skills. Let us give them a track so that they can go forward with their profession; let us assure them of promotion based on merit, not on subjective standards being applied right now,” Romulo said.

Regarding the head teachers, their current career pathways will not be impacted unless they choose between the two career routes offered by the proposal.

The pay hikes will be based either on increase in salary grade or through the implementation of the Salary Standardization Law.

To boost professional development and career advancement among public school teachers, other members of the House panel expressed support and recognition of the urgent need to address the challenges educators face.

The unnumbered substitute bill was approved by the appropriations committee on February 13, almost a year after its approval by the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture.