Teachers are set to receive a P5,000 cash allowance from the Department of Education (DepEd) on the official opening of classes on Monday.

This was announced by DepEd spokesman Michael Poa during the press conference in Pasig City on Friday.

"On August 22, we will be giving our teachers what we called the cash allowance of 5,000 pesos. This is just to augment and give them additional assistance for what they need for the opening of schools," he said.

"All the teachers will receive this, it will be moved down to the schools division by August 22, the 5,000 cash allowance will be provided to help the teachers in their preparation for the upcoming school year," he added.

Poa added that as part of the preparation for the opening of classes, the Department of Education recently downloaded P3.7 billion as supplemental Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) for the schools nationwide.

"This is to make sure that they have complete equipment, especially to make sure that the safety standards like the use of alcohol and face masks will be implemented," he said.

"The local government units also help in supplying face masks and we thank them for supporting the opening of classes," he added.

Poa said so far 92.11 percent or 921,925 out of 1,000,945 teaching and non- teaching personnel are fully vaccinated while only 19 percent of the learners are immunized with COVID-19 vaccine.

He also noted that all schools that will implement in person classes have submitted their infection containment strategy.

However, Poa said the DepEd will also release a new department memorandum that will focus on the health safety standard to control possible spread of infection in school facilities.

"We already have a draft that will be released by today or tomorrow definitely before the opening day of classes... I don't want to give many details because it is still being finalized but basically that will address the isolation and quarantine requirement in connection to the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force) guidelines, DOH (Department of Health) guidelines in case of possible infection in a classroom," he added. Robina Asido/DMS