DepEd-Baguio advised to hire para-teachers

July 25, 2020 Provincial

The city council, in a resolution, has urged the Department of Education-Schools Division of Baguio City to recruit para-teachers to beef up its workforce for the implementation of the new ways of learning.
The council has likewise advised Dep-Ed-Baguio to give higher preference to teachers who have been displaced due to the closure of private schools and to unemployed Education graduates. Education Secretary Leonor Briones previously announced the DepEd is eyeing to hire para-teachers to assist parents in the education of their children under the blended learning modality.
Echoing Briones, Councilor Vladimir Cayabas, main author of the resolution, said employing para-teachers will be of big help to the Schools Division of Baguio City especially in facilitating learning sessions for students whose parents are not capable of monitoring and guiding their children under the distance learning mode.
Cayabas also reiterated that a number of private learning institutions in the locality had stopped operations due to the expected low turnout of enrollees and the financial strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic while others had already signified their intention to close this coming School Year 2020-2021. Cayabas said the lay off has contributed to the ballooning unemployment rate.
“This is a good opportunity to provide employment opportunities to our local talents whose employment from private schools has been disrupted due to COVID-19 and to those graduates of Education who are available for service and employment,” Cayabas said.
Copies of the resolution will be forwarded to the regional and national offices concerned for their information. A para-teacher is also called an assistant teacher, a teacher aide, and a para-educator.
As discussed in Republic Act 9293, para-teachers “shall be assigned to areas where there is a shortage or absence of a professional teacher, as identified and provided by the Department of Education and the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) education department to the Board for professional teachers and to the Commission.”
Jordan G. Habbiling