GUIDELINES ON THE GRANT OF SPECIAL HARDSHIP ALLOWANCE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS

GUIDELINES ON THE GRANT OF SPECIAL HARDSHIP ALLOWANCE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS

DepEd Order No. 039, s. 2021 (DOWNLOAD)

The Department of Education (DepEd) recognizes t_hat in order to make education more accessible to all, it is necessar5r to recruit, retain, and encourage personnel to work in hard-to-reach, far-flung stations as well as those with more challenging working conditions. The grant of incentive pay to such teachers, particularly a Special Hardship Allowance (SHA), is supportive of this cause.

Pursuant to Section 19 of Republic Act No. 467O, otherwise kno$ryr as the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, DepEd has been providing SHA as additional compensation to teachers who are 'exposed to a hardship such as a difficulty in commuting to the place of work or other hazards peculiar to the place of employment, as determined by the Secretary. " Consequently, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) issued the National Budget Circular (NBC) No. 514, s. 2OO7 to operationalize the provision of SHA.

While these policies provided guidance in the pa5rment of SHA, implementation challenges surfaced during field monitoring. The concerns primarily centered on the need to come up with a more objective method of identifying recipients and streamlining the long process of availment. These changes are essential to rectify varying interpretations of the NBC 514.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) together with DepEd, conducted a study on the provision of SHA: from the identification of recipients to the actual payment of the allowance. The study revealed that the current decentralized processing of the SFIA leads to variation in the interpretation of the guidelines resulting in different computations, particularly in the absence of a standardized tool for calculating the individual SHA per teacher.

The study also uncovered other major hardship factors contributing to the difficulty of the situation in schools, aside from transport inaccessibility stipulated in NBC 514. The most significant of these factors are time and cost of transportation from school to Schools Division Office (SDO), human violence, availability of temporary learning spaces, level of poverty, and availability of basic amenities and services, such as telecommunication, water, and electricity.

Thus, these guidelines are issued to ensure a streamlined, more objective, and efficient process of SHA payment to qualified teachers.

GENERAL GUIDELINES AND OTHER ELIGIBILITY CONDITIONS

1. The following public school teachers are eligible for the provision of Special Hardship Allowance (SHA):

a. All teachers in elementar5r and secondar5z schools in hardship post as determined by t1:e hardship index;

b. Multi-grade teachers in pure multi-grade schools;

c. Mobile teachers, and Alternative Learning System (ALS) Coordinators concurrently handling ALS 

classes; and

d. School heads assigned in hardship post or pure multi-grade schools.

The qualified teachers may either be resident or transient, having permanent or provisional or substitute or temporary appointments.

2. All qualified recipients shall receive the SHA amounting to twenty-five percent (25%) of their monthly salary for a period of ten ( 1O) months for every fisca1 year, which shall be released on a quarterly basis.

3. For qualified personnel who meet more than one (1) criterion (e.g. a pure MG school is also categorized as a hardship post) the MG teacher shall receive SHA on only one criterion.

4. The SHA shall be withdrawn if:

a. The qualified personnel from a hardship post transfers to a non-hardship area;

b. The qualified personnel from a pure MG school transfers to a non-hardship post or a non-pure MG school;

c. The school is no longer a pure MG school (offering both MG and monograde classes); and

d. The mobile teacher or DALSC is no longer handling ALS classes.

DepEd Order No. 039, s. 2021 (DOWNLOAD)

FREE DOWNLOADABLE FILES FOR TEACHERS (Updated for SY 2021-2022)
WEEKLY HOME LEARNING PLAN (WHLP)	DOWNLOAD
SUMMATIVE TESTS (With Answer Keys)	DOWNLOAD
PERFORMANCE TASKS (With Rubrics)	DOWNLOAD