THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers challenged Vice President-elect and incoming Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio to deliver on the promises that her father failed to keep.

“For one, she should push for significantly increasing teacher’s salaries to correct the distortion in the government salary scheme where teacher’s pay lag behind those of uniformed personnel and nurses,” Vladimer Quetua, the group’s spokesperson, said.

“This will relieve teachers of burdensome loans, improve their living conditions, lift their morale, and ultimately improve the quality of teaching and of education,” he added.

Quetua also urged Duterte-Carpio to “meet the government’s unpaid obligations to teachers” such as the overtime pay for 77 excess workdays they rendered for School Year 2020-2021.

She should also compel the Commission on Elections to immediately pay the additional honorarium of poll workers who rendered extended election service in the May 2022 elections.

“She can also support the demands of teachers as well as other sectors to suspend the Philhealth premium increase,” Quetua added.

Resolving the learning crisis is another challenge that Duterte-Carpio should prioritize, the ACT official said.

“Her father has caused the world’s longest school closure during the pandemic, which resulted in unprecedented learning crisis, as he rejected many times to reopen schools. She should rectify this by diligently working for meeting the requirements for safe school reopening and rolling-out an evidence-based education recovery program,” Quetua said.

“Objectively evaluating the current education situation through nationwide student assessments and consultations with education stakeholders can effectively guide measures for addressing the learning crisis that plague our education system. We hope that VP-elect Duterte is up to these challenges and truly help our teachers and the whole education,” he said.