Honorarium for volunteer teachers in Baguio requested

Baguio City, Philippines – Baguio City officials on Thursday, Jan. 13, requested the Department of Education-City Schools Division to provide an honorarium for volunteer teachers in the city who, despite the pandemic, are willing to render unpaid services among school children to cope up with the challenges of distance learning.

Under Resolution No. 631, series of 2021, city officials stated that serving as volunteer teachers also requires competency in order to be able to teach the children well, especially during these challenging times, which is worth being reciprocated.

The council, as reported by the Public Information Office - Baguio City, said volunteer teachers sacrifice their time, effort, and resources to ensure the successful implementation of the blended learning; thus, they say, DepEd should find ways and means to reciprocate their laudable contributions.

In this connection, the local legislators asked the education department to “extract legal measures and remedies on how it could provide honorarium to all para-teachers who would pass the qualifications and requirements that will be established and set for the said purpose.”

Earlier, the education department opened the idea of hiring para-teachers to help facilitate lessons for students outside the classroom who struggle with the new learning set up.

The council then passed Resolution No. 420, series of 2020 that encouraged the education department to consider hiring laid-off workers and unemployed graduates to serve as para-teachers. This would ensure enough workforce to assist all learners cope up with the new mode of learning.