DepEd questioned over repeat order of error-riddled textbook

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) has failed to conduct a public bidding for a new Filipino reading and language textbook for elementary school students in the past several years, resorting instead to “repeat orders” of a textbook title first bought in 1999 that has already been exposed to contain numerous errors.

Antonio Calipjo-Go, academic supervisor of the Marian School in Sauyo, Novaliches, Quezon City who has exposed several error-riddled textbooks used in both private and public schools, revealed in his latest expose that the DepEd’s Instructional Materials Council Secretariat, has made “repeat orders” in 2002, 2007 and 2008 of the “Landas sa Wika” and the “Landas sa Pagbasa” textbook for Grade 6 authored by Paz Belvez and published by Dane Publishing House, Inc., first procured in 1999.

Go pointed out that DepEd had persisted in procuring the textbook title for use of public school students despite his inclusion of the two textbook titles in earlier exposes of error-riddled textbooks used in public schools. “The sad thing is that these textbooks are far from the good books they are supposed to be, containing as they do errors over and above what is deemed tolerable and acceptable,” Go said.

“This means that the errors had continuously been taught and imprinted onto the minds of Filipino schoolchildren since 1999,” Go pointed out.

Go said that it was highly questionable why DepEd has not conducted a public bidding for a new and better quality textbook in 2004 when the five-year shelf life of the textbooks had lapsed.

Instead of conducting a public bidding, the DepEd had resorted only to the repeat orders.

It was learned that in April  2006 and in December 2007, the DepEd had supposedly conducted two public biddings to procure new Filipino reading and language textbooks for Grade 6.

However, both biddings were declared a failure due to all the submitted textbook manuscripts not passing the DepEd IMCS’ evaluation.

In the 2008 repeat order of DepEd, they asked for 352,963 copies of “Landas sa Pagbasa” and the “Landas sa Wika” textbook each.

Go noted that DepEd had not even made an effort to correct the glaring errors in the textbooks when it ordered for a reprint of the textbooks in 2007 and 2008.

“Why were the errors not corrected in the textbooks reprinted last December 2008? Why have these books published by Dane Publishing House not replaced by better ones?” Go asked.

Go’s previous expose last June resulted to the DepEd issuing an errata guide for an error-riddled series of English textbooks for Grades 1 to 6 students purchased by DepEd in 2007.

The expose of numerous errors in the English textbook series “English for You and Me” published by Bookwise Publishing resulted to an admission of deep frustration from Education Secretary Jesli Lapus over the miserable failure of the Department of Education’s much-ballyhooed four-level textbook evaluation process to prevent the purchase of an error-riddled textbooks.

Lapus pointed out that they have already instituted the four-layer textbook evaluation system since 2007, getting the services of academicians “with the highest credentials”.

He noted that a final layer of evaluation even included education experts from the prestigious Ateneo de Manila University.

DepEd was supposed to have issued a “teaching guide” for public school teachers of students who will use the “English for You and Me” textbooks for Grades 1 to 6.

The DepEd used a $200-million loan from the World Bank to purchase the English for You and Me series and other books, which were supposed to have undergone a thorough four-level content evaluation by education experts to prevent errors.