Marcos to Angara: We have to take care of teachers

''We have to take care of teachers.''

This was among the directives of President Ferdinand ''Bongbong'' Marcos Jr. to incoming Education Secretary Sonny Angara, noting that teachers are behind the success in the Department of Education.

In an ambush interview in Sulu on Friday, Marcos said he already talked to Angara and he emphasized to the outgoing senator that the government should financially support teachers who have families to feed.

''The key to any successful program in the DepEd are the teachers. So I said we have to take care of the teachers, we have to... of course financial, to make sure they can feed their families. Kasi [Because] we tend to forget sometime that teachers have families, we see them as just teachers ... they have families, they have to take care of their families,'' Marcos said.

''They cannot teach properly kung inaalala nila 'yung pamilya nila [if they worry about their families]. So we have to make sure they are in a good place so that the teachers can concentrate on actual teaching,'' he added.

Marcos also underscored that the retraining of teachers is also necessary for the development of their skills and capabilities in the education industry.

Angara earlier said he would study the proposal to increase the entry-level salary of public school teachers to P50,000.

Angara, who was named by Marcos as the successor of Vice President Sara Duterte at the Department of Education, said he not only wants better working conditions for teachers, but also improved salaries and benefits for them.

Aside from increased salary, Angara said he aims to give teachers better working conditions by reducing their non-teaching tasks so they could concentrate on their main duty. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News