In support of the government’s plan to reorganize and streamline the bureaucracy, Senator Chiz Escudero has refiled a bill that seeks to lower the compulsory retirement age of employees of the Department of Education (DepEd) from 65 years old to 60 years old.
Enrolled as Senate Bill (SB) No. 58, Escudero said that the proposed measure would cover all DepEd regular employees, including the public school teachers whose headcount, as of School Year 2019-2020, stood at more than 800,000.
“If enacted into law, this proposed legislation will benefit hundreds and thousands of retirable DepEd personnel, both teaching, and non-teaching, who would want to spend the prime of their lives doing other occupations other than their usual functions in the government,” said the chair of the Senate Committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education.
“Mas marapat na bigyan natin ang mga kawani ng pamahalaan na magkaroon ng mahaba-habang panahon para sa kanilang pamilya.”
“Mas marapat na bigyan natin ang mga kawani ng pamahalaan na magkaroon ng mahaba-habang panahon para sa kanilang pamilya. There is more to life than work,” the veteran legislator added.
At the same time, the senator said the proposed bill, to be known as the New DepEd Retirement Age Act, augurs well for the revitalization of the department to ensure high-quality education in both public and private schools, as he noted that the present system at the DepEd “needs skills updating and professional advancement of their personnel in order that services rendered at the department will be restructured and modernized.”
“This measure shall also open the doors of opportunities to young teachers and non-teaching aspirants for the jobs at the Education Department.”
“This measure shall also open the doors of opportunities to young teachers and non-teaching aspirants for the jobs at the Education Department,” he added.
The bill, however, allows a DepEd employee to serve until he or she reaches the age of 65 if he or she has less than 15 years of service, subject to the existing civil service policies and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) rules and regulations.
