The Department of Education (DepEd) will prioritize deploying counselor associates to what are considered school “hot spots.”

DepEd Undersecretary Malcolm Garma said during the Kapihan sa Prince Hotel on Wednesday, 2 September, “We will be prioritizing our schools, based on our mapping, that are called hot spots wherein school violence is recorded.”

The undersecretary noted that these are mostly large schools located in urban areas.

“We are optimistic that the hiring of counselor associates would really be a game changer for many schools,” he stated.

Spate of violence

The decision to hire counselor associates was prompted by the alarming number of recent school violence incidents, including shootings, that have already resulted in student deaths.

Garma said the DepEd has been allowed to get 10,000 counselor associates.

“We are in the process of hiring these counselor associates,” Garma disclosed.

However, the DepEd official admitted that the number is not enough.

During the Congress deliberations for the 2027 budget, the undersecretary said, “We will be asking po for more because that 10,000 definitely would not be enough for the more than 45,000 schools that we have.”