PANGASINAN 5th District Rep. Ramon Guico III has filed a measure that seeks to provide incentives to highly competitive teachers in rural areas.

House Bill 5073 or the proposed Rural Teacher Retention Act aims to encourage skilled teachers to remain in their villages by providing them incentives

Guico said many teachers leave their communities for better opportunities in other areas.

“Without teachers to guide and develop the potentials of children in these  impoverished rural areas, it is not only the children that are deprived of a future, but their communities as well,” he said in his explanatory note.

House Bill 5073 mandates the Department of Education to give salary bonuses to highly competitive teachers.

“This act shall not be construed as a permanent solution to the woes of our rural teachers, rather it shall be taken as a temporary panacea while the government is yet to fully execute its development plants for our education system,” the lawmaker said.

Under the bill, the DepEd will carry out a five-year pilot program to award grants to 10 provinces that in turn will give salary bonuses to highly qualified teachers or highly qualified special education teachers who teach for at least three academic years.