Gov’t to open 15K new posts for public school principals
The Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) welcomed on Wednesday a commitment from the government to add 15,000 new plantilla positions this year for school officials nationwide after it earlier reported that more than half of the country’s public schools were without principals.
The announcement was made by President Marcos himself even as the Department of Education (DepEd) said it would carry out some key interventions starting this year. These include deploying the existing pool of 7,916 National Qualifying Exam for School Heads (NQESH) passers, as of last year, to fill up vacant principal positions.
According to the commission’s Year 2 report, only 20,381 out of the 45,199 schools have sitting principals. The other 24,916 schools are without principals, of which 13,332 are headed only by a head teacher; 8,916 schools by a teacher in charge; 2,337 by an officer in charge; and 193 are “undefined.”
Among other interventions, Edcom 2 recommended the immediate appointment of NQESH passers. It also urged the DepEd to return to their assigned schools the principals who had been appointed to offices.
The commission, meanwhile, commended the DepEd for partnering with the National Electrification Administration to address electricity issues faced by Last Mile Schools nationwide.
According to the commission, 1,500 out of 9,000 Last Mile Schools have no electricity with many of these found in Cotabato, Palawan, Sulu and Zamboanga del Sur provinces.
“The lack of school leaders and the persistence of infrastructure problems like the absence of electricity in remote areas [are] long-standing obstacles to providing quality education,” said Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, Edcom co-chair.
