DepEd targets promotion of 100,000 teachers in 2026

The Department of Education (DepEd) said on Friday that about 100,000 teachers will be promoted this year through the Expanded Career Progression (ECP) system to address long-standing promotion backlogs.

“In 2026, because of the big budget given by the President and the Congress, we are targeting to promote 100,000,” Education Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara told reporters in an interview.

“The program by President Bongbong streamlines the promotion and rank of our teachers because we saw that there are teachers who have not yet been promoted from Teacher 1 for a decade,” he added.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. noted that the ECP will help senior educators advance their careers through merit and competency-based approaches. Concurrently, the framework would also open opportunities for new graduates.

“We will expand our educators’ career paths through strategic reclassification by creating more high-level positions,” he said in his speech at the oath-taking ceremony for teachers and school leaders from the National Capital Region (NCR).

“We can have senior educators move up based on merit and open new entry positions to new graduates,” he added.

Among the 2,915 newly promoted personnel in NCR, 2,186 advanced through natural vacancies, while 729 were promoted through ECP reclassification.

One of the promotees, Eloisa Reyes Cruz, 64, said that the ECP system helped her be promoted from Teacher I to a Teacher III post after 10 years of service at Eusebio High School in Pasig City.

“I’m very grateful because before I couldn’t be promoted because I still lacked schooling,” she told reporters in Filipino. “I missed the chance to study because of family matters.”

Unlike the previous promotion system, Ms. Cruz underscored that the ECP has a faster process and less paperwork.

“You have to process a lot of things with the normal thing, but right now, they are asking us for only a few requirements, and it’s fast,” she said.

“I don’t know what would happen on the second batch, but this time it took us two to three months to process,” she added.

Along with a higher position, she also had a salary increase from P26,000 to P32,000.

P50,000 ENTRY-LEVEL SALARY FOR TEACHERS
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines (ACT) reiterated its call for a P50,000 entry-level salary for public school teachers, following DepEd’s discussion with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on a flexible long-term loan arrangement.

“While we recognize DepEd’s effort to respond to the financial distress of teachers, more loans – even with longer terms – are not the solution,” ACT Philippines Chairperson Ruby Bernardo said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

The group added that framing the debt crisis as a matter of “loan restructuring” risks normalizing loans as part of teachers’ lives.

“Teachers need a P50,000 starting salary to support their families and stop depending on loans just to survive,” she added.

Although Mr. Angara has expressed his support for the proposal from the teachers’ group, he said the decision ultimately depends on Congress’ approval.

“Of course, we support that but it depends on the Congress because we know the budget given is already big. Whatever the Congress says we can give, we have to respect it,” he told reporters in Filipino.

In 2025, a Teacher I position in public schools has a Salary Grade (SG) 11, or approximately P30,024. Meanwhile, Teachers II and III fall under SG 12 and 13 or P32,245 and P34,421, respectively. — Almira Louise S. Martinez