Who Will Guide the Filipino Youth?
There is no stopping Filipinos from working abroad. Doctors, nurses and engineers are among others. The sad thing is – even our educators – are joining the mass migration of Filipinos.
What do you think are the reasons pushing our teachers to work abroad? They are supposed to be the ones laying out the foundation for the Filipino youth and yet – they continue to seek for careers abroad leaving the Filipino youth hungry for quality education.
So what’s really keeping our Filipino teachers from staying and teaching away from Philippines?
According to Annie Geron, secretary-general of Public Service Labor Independent, 4,000 Filipinos have already have already moved to the US, Middle East and other Asian countries for teaching jobs in less than a decade.
Because of these, our quality of education has deeply suffered and it also resulted in a shortage of about 16,000 teachers when the school year opened.
Poor working conditions and uncertain career advancement have been cited as contributing factors why our teachers are going elsewhere to teach and earn.
But one of the most obvious and foremost reason is the low salary. A local teacher’s salary in Philippines pales in comparison when compared to how much he or she can earn in the US. In the US, a teacher could earn from $4,000 to $8,000 a month or 20 times his or her salary in the Philippines. According to Labor Undersecretary Romeo Lagman, his wife is a teacher for 41 years but when her wife retired, her salary was only P14,000. Knowing this, most of us might not be surprised anymore why teachers are selling polvoron, longganisa, tocino, yema and pastillas to their students.
If you were a teacher, what would you choose – a $300 a month salary or somewhere around $4,000 to $8,000 a month salary?
Don’t be surprised also if teachers themselves are the ones encouraging students to study hard and work abroad.
As an OFW, I will not be surprised at all.
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