September 16 Declared As National Chalk Day
National Chalk Day
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers or ACT had declared today, September 6, 2011, the "National Chalk Day" to be observe annually every September 16 of the year.
Not that it will be declared as a national holiday but the secretary general of ACT, France Castro, publicly announced the declaration to show to the government that the chalk allowance given to the teachers is too far from enough.
“The traditional amount of P700 yearly chalk allowance or P3.50 per day is not enough to cover the teaching supplies needed by a public school teacher in the 203 school days in a year that he or she has to teach. We ask that this be increased to P2, 000,” - Congress representative France Castro said on a media interview.
The teachers' group said that they are too tired repeating the complaint about how small the chalk allowance is, that their group had decided to appoint a National Chalk Day. The group said that teachers spend three times more that the allowance given by the government to buy the one of the most vital tool for teaching, the indispensable chalk.
The keywordspeak.com team is thinking however that we are not sure if the law on not physically hurting the students is so implemented or that teachers are really into chalk poverty that we are not hearing any flying chalk on classrooms nowadays. Not like on our times where erasers and chalk normally flew inside the classrooms - yeah, the classic moments.
Going back to the topic, the ACT said that the condition of the teachers on the more remote areas of the country is a lot worse than that on the city-based public school teachers because they do not receive any chalk allowance at all - as in!
So where do you think these teachers on the far-flung areas are getting their chalk? It is said that the chalk came from the their own pockets or from contributions of the parents.
Department of Education Secretary Armin Luistro however sympathetic said that it would only be possible if the budget alloted for the chalk allowance increases for the 2012 budget which is still subject for approval. The increase of public elementary and secondary teachers to 500,000 would mean a budget of 1 billion pesos for the 2,000 chalk allowance that the ACT demands.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers or ACT is the largest non-traditional teachers' organization in the Philippines.
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