Education Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” M. Angara on Wednesday said that the Department of Education (DepEd) aims to boost the financial literacy of more teachers to avoid financial vulnerability.
“Our goal is really to increase the financial literacy of our teachers because we saw that a lot are still lacking, sometimes they are scammed,” he told BusinessWorld in Filipino on the sidelines of an event.
Mr. Angara noted that teaching financial literacy is “very complex, as it also involves other topics such as cybersecurity. “So, it’s not just the concepts; you also have to teach them how teachers become vulnerable to financial scams, etc.”
In line with the department’s initiative to “aid in the production of a financially literate and debt-free teaching force”, the Education chief noted that DepEd partnered with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and BDO Foundation in launching the BSP E-LEARNING ACADEMY (BELA) last September.
BELA is an online platform that provides e-learning courses on personal finance, economics, and central banking.
Under the DepEd Order (DO) No. 22, s. 2022, or the “Financial Education Policy”, teaching and non-teaching personnel are encouraged to access nine self-paced e-learning modules in the BELA Personal Financial Management Course to help them “make sound financial decisions that lead to financial health and financial inclusion.”
The department added that each module takes less than 30 minutes to complete.
Topics included are financial planning, budgeting and saving, debt management, basics of investing, financial consumer protection, digital financial literacy, fraud and scam prevention, Personal Equity and Retirement Account (PERA), and the BSP’s role in the economy.
TEACHERS IN DEBTIn a separate interview, INNOTECH Centre Director Majah-Leah V. Ravago noted that while teachers have higher literacy rates compared to the general population, teachers remain in debt.
Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Chairperson Ruby Bernardo, in a Facebook post on Wednesday, added that teachers “drowning in debt” is not caused by poor financial habits but “state neglect and worsening economic crisis”.
“What finances are we supposed to manage when our salaries are far below the family living wage and our benefits barely cover our needs?” she said.
DepEd data from 2019 showed that public school teachers have a total outstanding loan to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and private lenders of at least P319 billion. — Almira Louise S. Martinez