Instructional Materials Council

There is a body in the Department of Education called the Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS). According to its website, it “provides technical assistance to the Instructional Materials Council in the formulation and adoption of policies and guidelines, in the development, evaluation, and procurement of textbooks and other instructional materials.”

Its mission is “to ensure that good quality and reasonably priced instructional materials are made available or provided to all public elementary and secondary schools when and where they are needed.” Its vision is that there are “quality instructional materials for students in public elementary and secondary schools.”

Since it was formed, the IMCS has been the center of various controversies about errors in textbooks and corruption in procurement. A quick search on the Web should turn up articles by Yvonne Chua, Luz Rimban, Vicente Chua Reyes Jr., Antonio Calipjo Go, and others on these controversies. In 1990, even the Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) that was responsible for setting up the trifocal system of education that we have now (DepEd, CHED, and TESDA) strongly criticized IMCS for its failure to provide quality textbooks to public school students.

When I was Undersecretary for Programs and Projects of the DepEd (then called DECS) in 2001, I tried but did not succeed in reforming the IMCS. (For the short period that I was in charge of IMCS, I take full responsibility.)

The problem lies not only in the persons that staff the IMCS. One can reasonably argue that IMCS is understaffed, that it does not have a budget proportionate to its importance in the country’s educational system, that it sometimes does have persons whose integrity is not beyond question. But that is looking only at the trees and not at the wood.

The real problem with IMCS is that it is a secretariat that has no council. It is supposed to serve a council, but the Instructional Materials Council (IMC), except for a rare meeting or two, does not exist.

The IMC was created as an afterthought. The name first appeared in 1983 in the General Appropriations Act, when the Textbook Council created by Executive Order (EO) No. 806 in 1982 was listed as an Instructional Materials Council. That seems, to my non-lawyer’s mind, a bit funny, since the IMC was not created by a law nor an EO, but merely by a typist.

In 1985, the DepEd (then named Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports or MECS) tried to justify the renaming of the Textbook Council through MECS Order No. 64.

On 30 September 1993, then President Fidel Ramos finally issued EO 127, which “revitalized the Instructional Materials Council by redefining its functions” and made it legal.

This EO listed the members of the IMC, namely, the Education Secretary, the Administrator of the Instructional Materials Development Center (now the National Book Development Board), the Director of Elementary Education, the Director of Secondary Education, and “two (2) other members to be appointed by the President.”

The IMC was given several powers, the most curious of which is to “approve textbooks for use in private elementary and secondary schools.”

That power given to IMC will surely raise not just the eyebrows but the blood pressure of private school administrators. Private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with academic freedom, which are now thinking of establishing Senior High Schools, have yet another thing to worry about.

Of course, in our country, laws are made to be ignored. As far as I know, this particular provision of EO 127 has never been implemented, but as even non-lawyers know, “dura lex, sed lex” (the law may be tough, but it is the law). Needless to say, as a private school administrator, I will be the first to object to the implementation of this provision, but I will leave that battle for another day.

The most important function of IMC is to “select and prescribe textbook and supplementary and reference books for use in public elementary and secondary schools.”

This means that the IMCS has absolutely no authority to decide on whether a textbook can be purchased by the DepEd or not. That authority resides only in the IMC. The IMCS is only a secretariat. Like any other secretariat of any other body, public or private, it is supposed merely to implement what the policy-makers decide.

The IMCS is usurping the authority of the IMC.

In 2005, I was asked to be one of the two appointive members of the IMC. We met once (or perhaps, I was invited only once because I was much too vocal). During that meeting, we made decisions about some textbooks being proposed for adoption in public schools. At least during that meeting, the IMC actually did what it was supposed to do.

That was a decade ago.

The DepEd recently issued a textbook call for learning resources for the K to 12 curriculum. Philippine publishers are now urging DepEd to lift a moratorium on the procurement of supplementary materials.

We are, once again, getting lost in the trees.

We should not forget the fundamental questions. Who or what exactly is authorized by law to approve textbooks and other learning materials for public schools? Who now constitute the IMC? What is the IMCS a secretariat of?