A GROUP of non-teaching personnel urged the Department of Education to hire more lawyers in the regional and school division offices.

Atty. Domingo Alidon, national president of the Department of Education-National Employees’ Union, said that there are division offices that do not have a lawyer whose main task is to solve the school’s legal issues and to provide legal advice to teachers.

“All small division offices should have a lawyer to help with the legal works. Currently, only the big division offices have lawyers,” Alidon said.

“We are in dire need of additional lawyers because, if you know, it is the regional director who is vested with the authority to discipline teachers. In one region, there are 60,000 or 90,000 teachers and there’s only one disciplining authority, so that means you have to strengthen your legal force,” he added.

Only recently, the DepEd has issued an order removing the administrative tasks for public school teachers.

“The department has already issued an order that the auxiliary functions of teachers be removed from them and transferred to non-teaching personnel,” Alidon said.

“And of course, this is nationwide, so it affects our workforce. So, our division offices and schools are now allowed to hire additional personnel,” he added.

Currently, there are more than 100,000 non-teaching personnel nationwide. Every year, the DepEd is hiring at least 5,000 personnel to address the current shortage of non-teaching staff.

“We need more non-teaching personnel because our schools lack personnel. So, we need additional bookkeepers and administrative officers at the school level,” Alidon said.