EDITORIAL - ‘Miseducation’

After a thorough review, the Department of Education has finally pulled out a history textbook that contains 431 typographical and factual errors. The book, Asya: Noon, Ngayon, at sa Hinaharap, will be replaced by another that the public can only hope has undergone better scrutiny by DepEd’s Instructional Materials Council. The error-filled textbook attracted national attention only because an academic supervisor of a private school had noticed the errors and gone public with the story. How many other textbooks used in public schools contain errors?

The public school system has enough problems mostly due to lack of funds. To be saddled with error-riddled textbooks can only aggravate the deterioration of the quality of education in public schools. That the errors in the textbooks were not detected by public school teachers indicates the quality of educators in government-run schools. With poorly trained teachers using substandard textbooks, what type of education can students hope to get from public schools?

All public schools suffer from a chronic shortage of textbooks. The problem is compounded by factual, grammatical and production errors in the few books that are available. These errors have been blamed on the lack of competent people to review textbooks for public schools. Another culprit is corruption in textbook procurement, with certain people more preoccupied with fat commissions rather than the quality of textbooks.

Academic experts have offered to help the government in reviewing the content of textbooks for distribution in public schools. There are also efforts, however belated, to standardize textbooks used in all government-run schools. To raise standards in the production of textbooks, the government should consider slapping penalties on publishing houses that release textbooks riddled with production errors. And graft-busters should train their sights on certain education personnel to discourage corruption in the procurement of textbooks.

Students in public schools are burdened enough by shortages of everything from chalk to classrooms and qualified teachers. The few textbooks available should not contribute to what has been described as the "miseducation" of Filipinos.