Why there’s urgent need to raise teachers’ salaries

MANILA, Philippines – The classes she teaches don’t start until midday, but young teacher Mikee Garcia begins her day much earlier.

It starts at 8 am. Garcia handwrites the lesson for the day on manila paper. Three hours later, she arrives at a public school in Quezon City, ready for a day of teaching 8 subjects and classes of more than 50 elementary students.

For 6 hours, she patiently handles a variety of kids – fast learners, slow ones, non-readers, rowdy kids, shy types. The school day ends at 6 pm, but work is far from over: she spends the night checking homework and planning her lessons for the next day.

Monday nights, she goes to university for graduate studies. On weekends, she spends several hours as a research assistant to add to her income.

For all these hours of work, Garcia takes home only around P15,000 every month.

Cutting the cycle of debt

Teachers spend long, grueling hours managing overcrowded classrooms and making sure students get the quality education they deserve. 

This means preparing lesson plans beyond work hours, or even tutoring slow learners from class long after the bells have rung for dismissal.

But with the long hours of work, they earn barely enough to cover their day-to-day expenses, forcing many teachers to go into side jobs or take out loans just to make ends meet.

Currently, teachers are paid a minimum of P18,549 ($425.58)* a month. But there have been moves to increase teachers’ take-home pay and ensure they have enough to meet their daily needs.

Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT Teachers) Representative Antonio Tinio has proposed to raise the minimum salary to P25,000 ($573.59).

Meanwhile, Senator Bam Aquino has filed Senate Bill No. 2333 that will set a minimum net take-home pay for teachers and other government employees.

Under the bill, teachers will be assured of a take-home pay of at least 30% of their monthly salary at all times.

Aquino pointed out that automatic deductions from loans and other payments leave teachers with little to spend for their needs, forcing them into a cycle of debt.

“How can these critical players in nation building impact the next generation if they are bombarded with financial woes?” Aquino said.

Guaranteeing financial security for teachers is a step in the right direction, said Garcia.

“It will really help a lot of teachers, especially those who have to provide for a family,” she said.

“I only have to fend for myself and yet I struggle to make ends meet. I can only imagine how difficult it is to have mouths to feed and children to send to school everyday.”

But she also emphasized the need to focus on improving and maintaining the quality of education too.

“I hope they also reexamine the process and standards for becoming a teacher as well as performance assessments so we can assure that the money the government pays us teachers don’t go to waste,” Garcia added.

Making ends meet

Every month, Garcia’s salary goes to graduate school fees, rent, groceries, transportation, and electricity and phone bills.

To stretch her peso, she cuts down on luxuries, skipping dinners out in restaurants or watching movies over the weekend.

She does this because part of her take-home pay also goes to supplies that the government should have provided for teachers and students in the first place.

“The students don’t have books of their own; the school just lends them books. So I pay for photocopying worksheets once or twice a week,” she said.

“I also buy books for our mini classroom library and toys to add to our play box every month.”

But the big blows to her salary come from the expenses she has to shoulder for the upkeep of her classroom. Garcia said that if something needs to be repaired or fixed, it’s the teachers who are expected to take up the costs.

“If there’s a student who gets injured, we [teachers] bring them to the hospital. I personally paid to have electricity in my classroom. I paid for the electric fans. Even the repainting of blackboards are on us,” she said.

The teachers are lucky if they can get donors, or if they’re patient enough for the long process of getting the renovations done through the education department.

“Other public schools are lucky, but for many of us, we’re left to look for our own resources.”

“Swerte kapag may donors, pero ‘pag wala, sa amin lahat ng gastos.” (We’re lucky if we have donors, but otherwise, we shoulder all the expenses.)

Meaningful, worthwhile experiences

Most would probably jump ship at the thought of having to spend more than they earn on things they shouldn’t have to spend on.

It may be cliché to say that there’s joy and fulfillment to teaching that money can’t buy, but it’s the small moments of triumph in her classroom that Garcia considers her reminders about why she keeps doing what she does.

She may have struggled with difficult students, but she has also seen them light up with joy at finally understanding the lesson for the day. Parents have told her that the children could hardly wait to go to school. She’d find the non-readers eventually learning to read entire paragraphs, and the troublemakers in class would one day help their fellow classmates with schoolwork.

“Ang sarap lang sa pakiramdam na makita mo na natutuklasan nila yung mga kaya nilang gawin at yung mga posibleng mangyari dahil doon,” she said. (It’s a good feeling to see them discover what they can do and their potentials.)

Garcia recounted how one student she had last year would go head to head with her. The boy couldn’t read, refused to study, and started fights to disrupt the class.

“Minsan sa sobrang galit niya minura niya pa ako kasi ayaw talaga niyang mag-aral. Napaisip tuloy ako noon kung anong ginagawa kong mali at kung may ginagawa ba akong tama,” Garcia recalled. (One time, he was so angry that he cursed at me because he really didn’t want to study. It made me think about what I was doing wrong and if I had been doing anything right.)

But Garcia believed that she could not just give up on him. She tried every day to get him to participate in class, until one day her efforts paid off.

“He was one of those students that you couldn’t give up on, however difficult it was to teach him.”

“Isang araw magugulat ka na lang, nag-aaral na siyang mag-isa, kakalabitin ka bigla at sasabihin, ‘Teacher nababasa ko na!’” (One day, you’ll just be surprised to see him studying by himself, tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Teacher, I can read it now!’)

It’s these small victories that make teaching a meaningful experience for her. But Garcia knows that her ability to help her students is also limited by her ability to help herself.

“Walang katumbas na pera ‘yung fulfillment na mararamdaman mo kapag nakikita mo ‘yung progress ng students,” she said. (There’s no monetary equivalent to the fulfillment of seeing your students’ progress.)

“But realistically speaking, you can’t help your students if you can’t help yourself. And that shouldn’t be the case. It should be possible to satisfy the needs of both the teacher and the student.” – Rappler.com

(1US$ : P43.59)