Recto wants more funds for workers displaced by K to 12 program

MANILA, Philippines – Senator Ralph Recto has called on the government to increase its assistance funds to displaced college teachers and workers due to the implementation of the K to 12 program.

Recto said the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) proposal of P500 million assistance funds in the national budget should be increased, saying it is not enough for the affected employees. 

“This should be augmented because if there will be 50,000 employees affected, it translates into about P840 in monthly aid per individual,” Recto said in a statement on Sunday, August 9.

With this, the senator suggested that funds allocated for “non-urgent and postponable activities” in the P3 trillion national budget be “rechanneled” to augment the DOLE aid package to K to 12 affected personnel.

To identify and correct deficiencies, Recto called on the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to “list in one package” all programs that will aid displaced faculty and personnel.

Under the K-to-12 plan, Grade 10 finishers are kept in high school for two more years of senior high school beginning 2016. This will lead to temporary unemployment of college faculty and personnel when high schools stop churning out college-bound graduates next year.

The idea, he said, is to find out if the “DOLE-Department of Education-Technical Education and Skills Development Authority –Commission on Higher Education Joint Guidelines on the Implementation” of the K to 12 are fully funded.

Assistance to college workers could come in the form of employment in public schools through “green lanes” dedicated to them, assignment to senior high school class if the college offers it, moratorium on the payment of SSS and PagIBIG loans, training, livelihood packages, and other forms of bridge financing.

The Philippine Institute for Development Studies has predicted that up to 33,000 college instructors may be temporarily idled until the pioneering Grade 12 class graduates in 2018. – Rappler.com