Ahead of this year’s school opening, National Unity Party (NUP) president LRay Villafuerte has called on the 19th Congress to help our President and newly named Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara carry out the national learning recovery program in the third year of the Marcos administration by writing laws that will uplift our teachers and improve the proficiency levels of their students.
“As the 2024-2025 Schoolyear (SY) opens this week, the 19th Congress can, on its third and final session, write education reforms to help put the government’s national learning recovery on the fast lane by passing new legislations to reverse the low proficiency levels of our students and improve the living standards of their tutors and provide them with well-grounded career paths either as teachers or school administrators,” Villafuerte said.
Some 16.5 million students enrolled in the K12 or expanded basic education program are expected to troop to public schools as the SY 2024-25 opens on Monday (July 29).
However, the opening of classes will be postponed in over 1,000 public schools in Metro Manila and four other regions that were hardest hit by the typhoon-enhanced habagat (southwest monsoon) rains.
Villafuerte recalled that following the recent appointment of former Sen. Angara as secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd), the President directed him to carry out the national learning recovery program without delay, with the goal of reversing what he called the low proficiency levels of Filipino students in information literacy, problem-solving and critical thinking.
For the President, the education system needs to be “strategically calibrated to make sure that our youth are not only taught to become literate. But, it must also consciously develop them into problem-solvers, and into critical thinkers — hungry for success, ready for the future.”
At the same time, the President said that equal attention must be given, too, to improving the lot of our teachers, whom he put at “the core of our national learning recovery.”
Villafuerte, along with fellow CamSur Reps. Miguel Luis Villafuerte and Tsuyoshi Anthony Horibata plus the Bicol Saro partylist—aims in HB 1798 to amend RA 7743 by putting up public libraries in all provinces, cities and municipalities as well as reading centers in all barangays throughout the country that still do not have such book rooms.
With the signing into law last June of a measure—Republic Act (RA) No. 11997—that doubled the annual allowance of about 800,000 teachers for their school supplies, Villafuerte said that the 19th Congress can complement this by passing in its third regular session a new law raising their salaries.
A co-author of RA 11997, Villafuerte noted that President Marcos himself had assured teachers in his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) of additional benefits that will make their lives easier while they are doing their teaching tasks.
“Despite their heavy workload and essential role as agents of constructive intellectual, social, cultural, political and moral change in our society, our public school teachers are among the most underpaid workers in the country,” Villafuerte said.
Thus, he said, “increasing their takehome pay will hopefully incentivize them to strive for excellence in their field and make teaching a more attractive profession for our students.”
Villafuerte has authored House Bill (HB) No. 1851 mandating a significant increase in the salary grade level of public elementary and high school teachers from Grade 11 to Grade 19.
Also, to expand our students’ access to learning tools, Villafuerte is pushing the congressional approval of House Bill (HB) No. 1798 establishing libraries and reading centers in every city, municipality and barangay, and HB 3687 upgrading the book rooms in all elementary and high schools as well as in colleges and universities nationwide.
Villafuerte, along with fellow CamSur Reps. Miguel Luis Villafuerte and Tsuyoshi Anthony Horibata plus the Bicol Saro partylist—aims in HB 1798 to amend RA 7743 by putting up public libraries in all provinces, cities and municipalities as well as reading centers in all barangays throughout the country that still do not have such book rooms.
Under this bill, all cities and municipalities shall eventually be provided with electronically-operated library systems, said Villafuerte, a former CamSur governor.
In HB 3687, meanwhile, the same CamSur lawmakers led by Villafuerte seek the establishment of a Division of Library Media Services in both the Bureaus of Elementary Education (BEE) and of Secondary Education (BSE) of the DepEd) and in the Bureau of Higher Education (BHE).
These bureaus are, under HB 3687, to partner with other stakeholders in designing curriculum-based instructional activities for students to access a broad diversity of information, and to encourage them and their teachers to use and share information on advanced technology.
Villafuerte sought swift congressional action on both bills, which, he said, put flesh into Article XIV, Section 1 of our Constitution that mandates the State to protect and promote the right of all Filipino citizens to quality education at all levels and to take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.
“To prepare young Filipinos for the challenges of the future, as well as keep our economy competitive, there should be provincial, city and municipal public libraries as well as barangay reading centers in all places nationwide that still do not have such facilities, and every elementary, secondary and tertiary school in the Philippines must be equipped with up-to-date library resources, certified library media specialists, access to advanced technology, and proper instruction on the use of library and information resources,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte said HB 1798 intends to strengthen RA 7743, otherwise known as “An Act Providing for the Establishment of Provincial, City, and Municipal Libraries and Barangay Reading Center throughout the Philippines,” and help fully realize the intent of this law in coordination with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).
HB 1798 aims to improve the current program, Villafuerte added, by mandating that RA 7743 “be based on the latest computer and electronic library technology. It also seeks to upgrade the reading center facilities with complete standard sets of books, e-books, online research resources and other materials. The electronic library system shall also be upgraded to the latest system, and that all cities and municipalities in the country be provided with electronically-operated library systems.”
The bill provides that the establishment of these libraries and reading centers shall be: (1) anchored on the development program of the National Library; (2) based on the latest computer and electronic library technology; and (3) undertaken in coordination with the development councils of cities and municipalities, and, in the case of barangay reading centers, in coordination with the respective barangay councils.
In places where these public libraries already exist, HB 1798 requires the National Library to continue upgrading the facilities in these book rooms with: (1) complete standard sets of books, e-books, online research resources and other materials; and (2) the latest electronic library system using computers for storing, cataloging, and filing of data and materials.
