SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian vowed to raise the issue on the hiring of teachers when the Senate will tackle the budget of the Department of Education for 2024.

Gatchalian has repeatedly urged the DepEd to speed up its hiring process.

At a recent Senate hearing, Gatchalian pointed to the number of schools that do not have enough teachers last school year and the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028.

Out of 39,186 schools for Kindergarten to Grade 6, nine percent or 3,505 have insufficient teachers while 24 percent or 2,412 of 10,188 junior high schools, and 34 percent or 2,522 of 7,520 senior high schools, do not have enough teachers.

“It’s really unjustifiable that our classrooms are not staffed with teachers when there are available positions and funding for those teachers. We really need to improve the process and during the budget hearing, I plan to raise what reforms they have undertaken,” said Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Basic Education.

Data from the Department of Budget and Management revealed that as of February 17, 2023, there were 24,254 unfilled teaching positions.

This is equivalent to almost three percent of the DepEd’s 879,789 teaching positions.

The bigger portion of these unfilled positions are for Teacher I, Special Science Teacher I, Special Education Teacher I, and Master Teacher I.

The Commission on Audit earlier said that while the DepEd was able to obligate 95% of its total adjustment allotments of P658.5 billion in its 2022 budget, the unutilized balance of P32.6 billion can be attributed to unfilled teaching positions as well as the delayed, partial, and non-implementation of various programs, activities, and projects.