The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced the creation of 5,000 new non-teaching positions within the Department of Education (DepEd) nationwide. The move aims to empower teachers by delegating administrative tasks and allowing them to dedicate more time to core instructional duties.

“This is a big help for our teachers. It will unload them from administrative work and allow them to focus on teaching students [Malaking tulong po ito sa ating mga guro na ma-unload sila sa mga administrative work at maka-focus sa pagtuturo sa mga estudyante],” said Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman. 

“By hiring non-teaching staff, our educators will be able to save a lot of time and effort,” she added.

The new positions include 3,500 Administrative Officer (AO) II positions and 1,500 Project Development Officer (PDO) I positions.

AO II and PDO I positions have a basic salary of P27,000 (SG-11) according to the Fourth Tranche Monthly Salary Schedule for Civilian Personnel of the National Government. 

These non-teaching personnel will be deployed across various Schools Division Offices throughout the Philippines.

The creation of these positions stems from a campaign promise by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who pledged to address the non-teaching workload burdening teachers.

“We need to hire more qualified non-teaching personnel,” President Marcos said in a statement. “We can give teachers more time to prepare their lesson plans. Sometimes, our teachers also serve as the librarian, nurse, we even receive reports that some are also in charge of the canteen.”

President Marcos believes that reducing these non-teaching tasks will improve the mental well-being of teachers and ultimately lead to a higher quality of education in public schools.

The funding for the filled positions will come from the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund in the FY 2023 General Appropriations Act, while the Retirement and Life Insurance Premium will be covered by Automatic Appropriations.