PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday signed into law a bill increasing the teaching allowance for public schools teachers.
The Kabalikat sa Pagtuturo Act will increase the allowance for each public school teacher to P10,000 from P5,000 beginning School Year 2025-2026, according to a press release from the presidential palace.
The law exempts the teaching allowance from income tax, it added.
The initial amount for the law’s implementation will be charged against the current budget of the Department of Education.
The allowance would cover the purchase of teaching supplies and materials, the payment of incidental expenses, and the implementation or conduct of various learning delivery modalities, Senator Juan Edgardo M. Angara, one of the law’s authors, said in a statement.
Funds needed for the continued implementation will be included in the annual national budget, according to the law.
ACT-Teachers Party-list Rep. France L. Castro, who is a co-author, said the law provides a “significant relief to teachers who have long borne the burden of shouldering the cost of teaching supplies out of their own pockets.”
Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio was not present at the signing ceremony for the law.
From 2010 to 2011, teaching supplies allowance for each teacher amounted to P700 annually. This went up to P1,000 from 2012 to 2014, and was increased further to P1,500 in 2015 and 2016, Mr. Angara noted.
Congress increased the amount to P2,500 in 2017 and to P3,500 in the following year up to 2020, he noted. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
