President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday confirmed that 16,000 new teachers have been hired in time for the start of the 2025–2026 academic year.
The announcement came as the President visited Epifanio delos Santos Elementary School in Manila to personally observe the first day of classes.
“I was explaining to our teachers for their benefit, so we can reduce their workload and lessen their administrative duties, we will be hiring 20,000 new teachers,” Marcos told reporters in Filipino. He added, “As of now, out of the 20,000, the Department of Education has already hired 16,000 new teachers.”
The newly filled positions are part of the 20,000 teaching slots approved by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) last May. The DBM also greenlit the recruitment of 10,000 non-teaching staff during the same period to help ease the administrative burden on educators.
The mass hiring aims to address shortages in public schools while improving classroom instruction by allowing teachers to focus more on teaching rather than paperwork.
