6 in 10 schools without principals

Almost six in 10 public schools in the country have no principals, prompting a lawmaker to call on the government to "to coincide the balancing of the budget with the wiping out of this backlog."

Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri said that as of June this year 24,709 out of the 42,076 - 37,161 elementary, 4,915 secondary - schools run by the Department of Education were without principals.

In their stead, "head teachers" have been appointed by the DepEd, school teachers who, on top of handling classes , take on the job of managing the school, Zubiri said.

"These are teachers who multitask, who carry additional duties, without extra compensation , " Zubiri said.

He said it was time to "regularize" their job , by appointing them as permanent principals.

Promoting them in rank would cost the government , by Zubiri's estimate, about P1.43 billion annually in additional pay .

Documents submitted by the DepEd to the Senate showed that the "annual compensation cost" of a newly-hired teacher is about P122,000 while that of a principal is about P180,000 .

Zubiri said the government should order a "mass promotion" of head teachers who are qualified to become principals, and hire replacements for the posts they will be vacating.

To its credit, the government plans to create 1,699 "Principal I" positions next year and has provided funds for these in DepEd's proposed P146 billion 2008 budget, an allocation Zubiri wants to be increased "to start the gradual erasure of the shortage in school principals."

He argued that putting regular principals in charge of schools would result in better management of these institutions " and in better academic performance by students , if partnered with more and better learning materials and facilities."

Zubiri said the installation of needed principals, "the frontdesk managers in our school system," should start in 2008, the year budget is balanced, "because wiping out the manpower deficit in schools is more important than wiping out the budget deficit. "