Teachers warn of job losses as WB reviews CHED

TEACHERS said they are worried about possible mass layoffs and privatization at the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) that could result from a World Bank (WB) review of the commission’s operations.

In a statement on Thursday, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines said the review of CHED’s structure, staffing and operations should be closely followed.

“The World Bank’s track record of promoting neoliberal, anti-labor policies is a reason for concern. Why the World Bank? The choice is suspicious at the least,” ACT Vice Chairman Carl Marc L. Ramota said.

ACT said World Bank-backed reforms in developing economies have included workforce reduction, wage and benefit restraint, and measures affecting job security, often framed as austerity or rationalization.

Mr. Ramota said rationalization policies could translate into job cuts and employment uncertainty.

Such policies “mean layoffs and job insecurity. These are part of earlier recommendations by the World Bank and other international financial institutions that have not benefited countries in the Global South, including the Philippines,” he said.

He added that such measures are frequently coupled with moves to shift government functions to the private sector, which ACT claims may prioritize corporate interests over public service delivery.

ACT said the CHED review should be viewed in the context of the Marcos administration’s broader “rightsizing” or optimization program, which seeks to streamline and reorganize the bureaucracy. ACT described the initiative as an approach that could weaken public institutions and further burden remaining personnel.

“Employees are overworked, and contractualization is widespread at CHED and in many government agencies,” Mr. Ramota said, arguing that the solution should be direct consultation with unions rather than top-down reorganization.

CHED officially launched an agency-wide “functional review” on Feb. 4, calling it a step toward quality assurance.

The World Bank review aims to map workflows, align staff competencies with roles, and identify overlapping functions with other agencies. — Erika Mae Sinaking