When President Arroyo said in her SONA last week that she has worked hard for the implementation of various highly-funded educational reforms, it is understandable that she could not go into the precise details of such reforms in her hour-long speech.
So it was up to her men to provide the details, and Press Secretary Cerge Remonde promptly stepped up to the plate to do so. In a column he writes for the Manila Bulletin, Remonde provided a virtual list of what Arroyo meant by highly-funded educational reforms.
Remonde cited staggering numbers of classrooms built, computer laboratories installed, improvement of welfare arrangements for teachers as well as salary increases and teaching hour reductions.
There were trainings of school managers and provisions of scholarships and related educational assistance, as well as curriculum restructuring and a sharp focus on vital areas of learning such as English, Science and Math.
We have no reason to doubt the figures made available by Remonde. He naturally has privileged access to records and documents that can satisfy any hunger for information in this and any other regard.
In other words we can believe that, at least in the aspect of education, great strides have indeed been made by the administration, although as the president herself admitted, there is still much to be done.
And we cannot agree more strongly. In fact, if we may offer some unsolicited advice, if not to the president directly, then through Mr. Remonde, who is a Cebuano — the administration should go out of its way to look into that pesky problem of error-filled textbooks.
There is perhaps no other problem that has the capacity to render futile all that has been achieved than teaching the young wrong information. All the time, money and effort to produce faulty products cannot but be an investment unwisely spent.
We trust that Mr. Remonde can not only bring this matter to the attention of the president but to swing her around as well to give the matter the attention it richly deserves. For frankly, the issue has not attracted as much attention as it should have.