Recycle the mentors

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The Secretary of the Department of Education has announced that the country will need 61,500 new teachers for schoolyear 2013. He has backed his statement with a claim that there is already a budget for this.

While the news is welcomed by everyone, considering that education is one of the most important concerns of our country, the news also evoked doubts as to how, and where Secretary Armin Luistro is planning to source all these teachers. Everybody knows that this is intended to complement his plans for a revised curriculum and for additional years of study in basic education for the country to keep up with the rest of the world, as far as the quality of its graduates is concerned.

But, are we assured of that many teachers coming out of our colleges and universities this year? Do we have thousands of teaching graduates standing by and just waiting for a call for employment from the government?

We ask these questions because we are aware of the sad fact that hundreds – maybe even thousands – of our college graduates who had taken up education are now working abroad, but, unfortunately, not as teachers, but in many other capacities, including that of domestic helpers. That was because they could not find teaching jobs in their own country, and those available could not pay as much as doing menial work in, say, the United States or the Middle East, could.

But there is an area where, perhaps Secretary Luistro could look if he wants to gather a lot of teachers who can immediately get into the groove, in a manner of speaking. This he could do by tapping the ranks of retirees, especially the more recent ones, who are still young enough, and still willing to go back to the job they loved, even if only on part-time basis. Those teachers had retired at age 60, some even younger. No one can call them inutile or decrepit yet. Why, we even give our judges and justices up to the age of 70 before sending them out to pasture.

We believe this is something that our education officials should consider seriously now.*