TACLOBAN CITY — Eastern Visayas needs at least 908 teachers in the elementary and secondary levels for this school year which starts on June 5.
Nanette Pla, chief of the planning office of the Department of Education (DepEd) Region 8, said at least 527 new teachers should be hired for the elementary level and 381 for the secondary level.
According to Pla, Leyte is short of 187 elementary teachers and 80 in the secondary level; Southern Leyte, 47 in the elementary and 22 in the secondary; Biliran, 16 in the elementary and 14 in the secondary; Samar, 52 in the elementary and 87 in the secondary; Eastern Samar, 64 in the elementary and 35 in the secondary and in Northern Samar, 84 in the elementary and 76 in the secondary level.
Meantime, among the six cities in Eastern Visayas, Tacloban City needs 16 elementary teachers and nine in high school; Ormoc, 24 in the elementary and 20 in the secondary; Calbayog, 15 in elementary and 15 in high school; Baybay, 10 in the elementary and 11 in the secondary; Maasin, four in the elementary and three in the secondary; and Borongan, three in each level.
Eastern Visayas has more than 22,000 teachers in elementary schools and about 10,000 in secondary schools in Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, Samar, Eastern Samar and Northern Samar.
Pla is encouraging the new board passers to teach in public schools where the salaries are getting higher.
A regular teacher receives a monthly income of around P20,000.
About 1.08 million students are projected to return to classes beginning this June 5 across the region.