MANILA — Sen. Francis Escudero said Sunday he refiled a measure that would lower the mandatory retirement age of employees at the Department of Education.

Senate Bill No. 58 seeks to set the retirement age of regular DepEd employees, including public school teachers, to 60 years old from 65, Escudero said in a statement.

"If enacted into law, this proposed legislation will benefit hundreds and thousands of retirable DepEd personnel, both teaching and non-teaching, who would want to spend the prime of their lives doing other occupations other than their usual functions in the government," said Escudero, who chairs the Senate Committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education.

But the bill allows a DepEd employee to serve until 65 if they have less than 15 years of service, subject to existing civil service policies and Government Service Insurance System rules, said Escudero, who filed the same measure during the 17th Congress.

The DepEd has nearly a million employees.

Escudero said the measure would help in the "revitalization" of the DepEd, adding that the agency "needs skills updating and professional advancement of their personnel in order that services rendered at the department will be restructured and modernized."

"This measure shall also open the doors of opportunities to young teachers and non-teaching aspirants for the jobs at the education department," he said.

Earlier this month, the Civil Service Commission proposed to study lowering the mandatory retirement age for state workers as part of efforts to right-size the government.

• DBM denies rightsizing to lead to mass layoff

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