Drug Testing For Teachers Will Intensify Corruption in DepEd

“Aside from being a complete waste of people's money, the proposed mandatory drug testing for students and teachers could open up new ways for the corruption-ridden Department of Education to divert a major portion of its already small budget for 2009,” Gabriela Women's Party Luz Ilagan said on Tuesday.

“The $25 million to be set aside for this project could be better spent for the improvement of the quality of education in the country, such as for the construction of school buildings, printing of textbooks, and granting of scholarships, most especially in Mindanao, where most of the lowest performing school in the National Achievement Test for elementary school pupils come from.”

Aloglumbak Elementary School in Lanao del Sur registered the lowest mean score from the 29,962 public schools which took NAT in 2007 with 5.80 percent, far below the passing rate of 75 percent. The school averaged 0 percent in both Science and HEKASI, and 0.06 percent in Math.

Several other schools suffer from the same depressing situation.

Ilagan, a former teacher, also called on her fellow lawmakers to increase teachers' salaries by approving House Bill 4734, “an act providing for additional compensation for public school teachers”.

“Forcing them to undergo tests for possible substance abuse while completely ignoring their long-time call to raise their salaries is an insult to teachers,” Ilagan said.

“Public school teachers can barely get by with their salaries which is below the amount other professionals receive and is the primary reason for the mass exodus of Filipino teachers who choose to practice teaching overseas or to apply for better compensated jobs such as domestic work.”

The Philippines is currently short of 39,763 teachers. The disproportionate student-teacher ratio of 50:1 is far from the ideal 20:1 and was pointed as the main cause of the deterioration of education in the country.