ARMM hires 765 more teachers for remote Maguindanao schools

COTABATO CITY - The education department hired 765 more teachers to help address illiteracy in far-flung areas in Maguindanao province and propagate culture of peace among school children.The teachers enlisted by the Department of Education-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao took their oaths as civil servants in separate rites administered on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday morning by lawyer Rasol Mitmug, Jr., DepEd-ARMM’s regional secretary.ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and senior members of his regional cabinet were also present in the event, held at regional capitol compound in Cotabato City.All of the new 765 teachers have licenses, according to Mitmug. They all passed the qualifying examination and mandatory testing of their teaching proficiencies set by our department, Mitmug said on Wednesday.Mitmug said the teachers were also asked to manifest their commitment, prior to their appointment, to serve in far-flung areas in Maguindanao province, which has 36 towns divided into two congressional districts.The ARMM government has enlisted more than 3,000 licensed elementary mentors in the past four years after incumbent officials removed thousands of ghost teachers from the payrolls of the education department that proliferated during the time of past regional administrators.Mitmug said 330 of the 765 new DepEd-ARMM teachers will handle classes in remote barrios in the second district of Maguindanao.They will handle peace education subjects needed to boost efforts to restore normalcy and foster sustainable development in areas covered by the southern peace process.Many of the new teachers shall be deployed in areas where there are enclaves of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front covered by interim security agreements crafted by the group and the national government.One of the agenda of the peace process between the government and the MILF is to provide education to Moro children in isolated areas.Hataman, who has ministerial control over DepEd-ARMM, said Wednesday he wants the new teachers to engage in off-campus activities meant to build unity among Maguindanao’s Muslim and Christian sectors.Mitmug said the Hataman administration has been complementing DepEd-ARMM’s literacy programs with infrastructure thrusts designed to improve the quality of education in the autonomous region.Mitmug said the common focus of DepEd-ARMM and Hataman’s office is to weaken misguided Islamic militancy in remote towns in the autonomous region by enabling children to gain access to mainstream schools through infrastructure, health and social welfare interventions.Violent religious extremists in ARMM provinces and armed local Islamic State-inspired blocs are eloquent in stoking hatred for government and animosity to non-Muslims using poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment as talking points.