THE HOUSE Committee on Appropriations addressed critical issues affecting the Philippine education system, including lapsed budgets, unfilled teaching positions, delays in learning material delivery, classroom shortages, and the status of the Department of Education enterprise resource planning system.

This was after the panel, headed by Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co resumed its review of the budgetary performance of the DepEd from previous years up to the first quarter of 2024.

Davao de Oro Rep. Maria Carmen Zamora said addressing the issues is vital to ensuring that the education system functions effectively and meets the needs of students and educators alike.

ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, meanwhile, expressed concern about the significant number of unfilled teaching positions, noting that over 20,000 positions for Teacher 1 to Teacher 3 remain vacant.

DepEd OIC Undersecretary Wilfredo Cabral assured that steps are being taken to address the issue.

“As early as November 2023, we issued a catch-up plan on how these positions can be filled,” he stated.

Cabral reported that nine percent of the positions have been filled, with 22 percent at various stages of appointment, adding that a monitoring system has been established to track compliance across all regions.

“To date, for 2024, we have about 30 percent of positions already filled, indicating that the regions are taking steps to address the vacancies,” Cabral said.

He stressed the importance of continuous monitoring to meet deadlines.

“We have specifically stated in our memorandum that all these items, whether newly created or previously unfilled, should be filled by August. This ensures that the budget allocated for these positions is fully utilized by the end of the fiscal year,” he added.