Mistakes happen first as farce, then second—or as in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) case, over and over again—as tragedy.
This time, DepEd, even with their slipshod management of the current school year, still had the temerity to brood over plans to resume face-to-face classes next year. This proposition came forward only recently when students, faculty, and parents alike have expressed their frustrations three months into the new remote learning set-up. We cannot expect the agency to successfully carry out an attempt to restore what was normal—the lack of classrooms and health facilities in schools aside—when it cannot even ensure the basic task of giving out error-free educational learning materials.
In numerous instances this school year, DepEd has come under scrutiny for learning materials they have produced for students who will be studying from their homes. At first, the atrocious English grammar was easy to make fun of, the incorrect divide-by-zero solution lampooned. Yet as these mistakes pile up, a shameful picture of our education system comes into view, one that portrays farmers without dignity, the activists as nuisance, and women as submissive, among others.
Though, granted that such questionable integrity of our education is no secret, the pressing concern is that these longstanding faults are being reviewed and supposedly rectified only now.
Even before schools shifted to the current mode of instruction, DepEd had been publishing and distributing materials of substandard quality to thousands of students. In 2019, the Commission on Audit flagged the department for fund mismanagement after having spent P254 million on textbooks that were discovered to have been riddled with inaccuracies.
According to the audit report, a 363-page Grade 3 English textbook alone contained 430 errors, which roughly translates to at least one error per page. Even the basic fact that the Philippines is an archipelago was misidentified in an Araling Panlipunan textbook as an island. Even so, for DepEd, these flaws are nothing but minor, just matters of usage and editorial preference.
Until now, DepEd, with a new leadership no less, still refuses to be held to account. Students and their guardians have exposed several erroneous modules on social media, but DepEd has only taken the blame for 41 of them—all of which were technical errors—citing that the others were not produced by its office. One of the many problematic materials was a Grade 12 media and information literacy exercise discouraging students from participating in mass demonstrations.
DepEd could constantly deny responsibility for these errors, but they cannot do the same for the miseducation they have been costing millions of Filipino children. Defective modules do not only impede the learning process for many, they also reinforce harmful perspectives, ideologies, and lessons, unlearning of which must be the point of education in the first place.
The pandemic is not to blame for a basic education system that has long been wanting and misdirected. In Bicol region, for example, DepEd reported early this year that over 70,000 elementary pupils could not read both in English and Filipino. Reading, together with writing, is a basic competency, and yet students still struggle to master such skills. Recently, another study revealed how 4th graders struggle with understanding their science and mathematics subjects.
The new learning environment may be hardly conducive to learning, especially since this is only forced upon us. This change has forced everyone to talk about the deep-seated problems in the country’s education system for probably the first time.
The agency, if still true to its mandate to provide equitable and quality education to the youth, must pay heed to public criticism and recognize the need for comprehensive reforms in our education—not just infrastructure- and technology-wise, but most crucially, an education that is no longer confined to teaching lessons alone.
Education, to be valuable, must align itself to the student’s needs and fast-evolving reality. Discard absurd mathematical problems and teach students how to think for themselves by letting them question ideas instead of passively accepting them. Educators must help purge our curricula of sexism, classism, and racism lest these beliefs continue to perpetuate and possibly disenfranchise many.
Though this shift to another learning setup has not been entirely for the better, nor for everyone, it could be a ground zero on which to rethink the purpose and delivery of our education.
Various crises are marring the present, and though we are living in it now, the younger generations would be the ones to face its repercussions. The current systems in place have obviously failed to avert these disasters, if not inadvertently worsening them.
Education, if truthful and relevant, can guide the youth in grasping present upheavals and help them put forward an approach on how to deal with these challenges. But more than finding solutions, schools should also teach the value of surviving and helping others do the same. This we can achieve if our schools begin to be inclusive, compassionate, and accessible. ●
The article was first published on December 14, 2020.
