Albay Rep. Joey Salceda
MANILA -- A lawmaker on Monday pushed for the creation of mechanisms to augment and support the country’s teaching workforce through the proposed Teacher Empowerment Act.
Under House Bill 6231, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda proposes to provide free continuing professional development (CPD) to public school teachers and limit their administrative functions to eight hours per week.
Salceda said the bill would also allow highly qualified individuals to teach their expertise.
“This bill is preparing the country for a series of reforms that will lead closer to the Finnish model of education: absolutely free, absolutely high-quality, light on workload, heavy on critical thinking and comprehension, and with universal access to nutrition. The first building block is the empowerment of teachers,” he said in the bill’s explanatory note.
The measure proposes the creation of support administrative staff such as school and district statistician, and government programs coordinator.
An administrative internship program shall also be established where qualified high school students may assist in teachers’ administrative functions.
Under the bill, preferential scholarship grants shall be provided for teacher-deficit and remote areas to ensure that there are available teachers who live near remote schools and to dispense with the need to assign teachers from far places.
Other provisions of the bill include free learner-based professional development programs for public school teachers, and merit-based grants to create professional development programs. (PNA)
