SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian has expressed his support for excluding teaching and non-teaching personnel from proposals to rightsize the national government.

Gatchalian highlighted the ongoing shortage of staff in the basic education sector. During the 2025 national budget deliberations, the Department of Education reported a nationwide shortfall of 56,050 teachers and 20,688 non-teaching personnel.

“Kung merong dapat i-exempt sa rightsizing, dapat ‘yung mga teaching and non-teaching personnel dahil alam naman natin na kulang ang bilang nila sa buong bansa,” Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, stated.

While advocating for their exclusion, the lawmaker also emphasized the need to streamline the teacher hiring process, which can take up to six months and requires coordination with the Department of Budget and Management and the Civil Service Commission.

Additionally, Gatchalian stressed the need for more non-teaching staff to alleviate teachers from administrative and ancillary tasks. According to the Second Congressional Commission on Education’s Year One Report, public school teachers are often burdened with over 50 non-teaching tasks, impacting their focus on teaching.

To address this, the Department of Education issued DepEd Order No. 02, Series of 2024, mandating the removal of non-teaching tasks from public school teachers.