the article below (Education in crisis: Changes at top too often
) sounds a bit like my undergrad thesis, but mine had emphasis on classroom shortages. this one deals with textbook blunders.
*naalala ko tuloy ang hirap ng magkalkal ng theoretical and conceptual precedents sa topic ko. awww. mam tim i miss you, hehehehe. 
I-TEAM REPORT
Education in crisis: Changes at top too often
By Beverly T. Natividad
Inquirer
Last updated 04:03am (Mla time) 08/20/2007
MANILA, Philippines — Recent changes in the Cabinet have sparked speculation that a new secretary will be named to the Department of Education (DepEd), where critics say frequent leadership turnover accounts for the sad state of the country’s education system.
Over the past six years under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s
administration, no one has stayed long enough at DepEd to do a thorough
job of cleaning up a veritable Aegean stables of Greek mythology.
“The DepEd needs continuing leadership,” says Corazon “Dinky”
Soliman, a former social welfare secretary who joined a mass
resignation in the Arroyo Cabinet during the “Hello Garci” controversy
in 2005.
“Whoever is at the helm will not be able to do justice to the job if he or she stays for a short time,” Soliman says.
Jesli Lapus, named education secretary in August 2006, is the fifth
person to head the DepEd since Ms Arroyo became President in 2001.
Rumors of yet another change in leadership have prompted a protest from the DepEd’s National Employees Union (NEU).
NEU president Domingo B. Alidon suspects that the continuing
controversy over error-filled textbooks and the alleged scandalous
manner some publishing houses are cornering printing contracts year in
and year out are behind the rumors.
But in fact the textbook procurement mess had been festering even before Lapus came in.
Alidon says Lapus has instituted reforms in the procurement process
and his accomplishments cannot be “overshadowed by these baseless
accusations.”
Ms Arroyo’s appointment of Director General Romulo Neri of the
National Economic and Development Authority last month as head of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) sparked rumors that this may lead to the appointment of an “education czar.”
Neri was ostensibly shifted to CHEd on a “special assignment” for
six months to address a so-called “jobs-skills” mismatch — a situation
where there’s a glut of 600,000 available jobs, mainly in
cyberservices, tourism and agribusiness, that over a million college
graduates cannot fill.
Also fueling speculation was a new executive order issued last
month, abolishing the National Coordinating Council for Education
(NCCE) and replacing it with a presidential assistant. NCCE is the
coordinating body for DepEd, CHEd and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority(TESDA).
The issuance of the order further fueled speculation on the supposed
education overlord with orders to whip the system into shape to meet
the demands of globalization and address Filipinos’ generally
depressing scores in Math, Science and English proficiency tests.
Lapus dismisses rumors
In a recent interview with Philippine Daily Inquirer editors and
reporters, Lapus dismissed talk that he was on his way out and instead
discussed DepEd’s effort to update textbooks in elementary and high
schools — a process that takes place every five years.
The current cycle began in 2005 — over a year before Lapus arrived
at the DepEd — and was funded by a $200-million loan from the World Bank.
Controversies in the bidding hobbled the project, requiring judicial
intervention following protests by the losing bidders, delaying it by
one year.
Delivery of the first tranche of textbooks in Filipino in Makabayan
and Aralin Panlipunan — social studies — from Grades 1 to 5 was made
only beginning in January for use in the 2007-2008 school year.
“When I came in, I was in the hot seat immediately,” recalls Lapus. “I didn’t even know the transactions.”
Unbundling
In a major attempt to sort out the mess, Lapus announced that he had
initiated steps to “unbundle” the bidding process by holding separate
tenders for textbook content, publishing and delivery — all previously
awarded to a publishing house.
The process started in May with the next set of updated English books.
Under the Lapus plan, authors will submit teaching materials and
manuals that will undergo a four-level examination — previously two
stages — by DepEd evaluators consisting of staff and consultants.
He also plans to form an “oversight” panel, including
representatives of such elite schools as Ateneo de Manila University,
De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines, that will
put an “institutional imprimatur” on the finished product.
“We’re still sounding off people,” he says, picking brains to determine what ideas will work best.
Transparency
“We need transparency in the process,” Lapus says.
Evaluators, who approved textbooks riddled with factual and conceptual errors, will be banned from the screening mechanism.
Participants will be called to a two-day seminar to get them to know
the rules of the game and make them compete with old hands familiar
with how the system works and are at a great advantage, allowing them
to corner bids all the time.
Lapus says representatives of the World Bank will participate in the seminar.
“All bidding documents have to pass through the World Bank,” he says. Winners will get a “no-objection” letter from the agency.
“The World Bank is not going to be party to hanky-panky,” he says. “Their reputation is more important than that.”
After a textbook has been selected, it will be given a copyright
with the appropriate fees and it will be submitted to a bidding process
for publishing — the second stage in the unbundling process.
Smaller lots
To ensure participation of local printing houses, Lapus says “lots”
– books for different grades — will be broken down into small amounts
up to a maximum of P100 million.
“Bidders will have to prove capacity to print,” he says. There will
be an examination of the publishers’ track record and financial
capability.
DepEd representatives will be present at every stage of the print
runs to ensure mistakes are immediately rectified once exposed. There
will be a “sampling of production on quality,” Lapus says. “Each
production run will have to be cleared.”
In the final stage, a tender will be held for delivery of the
textbooks — to do away with a problem that on several occasions in the
recent past resulted in teaching materials rotting in DepEd warehouses
undelivered.
One participant in a recent bidding offered to publish a book at
even half its printing cost, confident that it will be as before — the
product will not be delivered anyway, particularly in conflict-torn
regions of the country, and no one will raise a stink.
National concern
Lapus says he plans to mobilize civil society, nongovernment
organizations, parents and local communities to get involved in the
delivery and monitoring of the transactions. He also says he plans to
get the leading accounting firm Sycip, Gorres & Velayo to audit the
process.
If the textbook controversy appears to be Lapus’ main preoccupation,
it is because it is now on the front burner — an issue that is central
to the systemic failure to improve the quality of Philippine education.
Lapus, in fact, has quietly addressed numerous other problems
inherent in a huge bureaucracy, such as the DepEd. He has unburdened
one person in charge of procurement and put two more officers in order
to get things moving.
He is wracking his brains trying to address the annual problems of
shortages of classrooms and schools, desks, pushing the all important
initiative to train and hire teachers.
Conscious of an alarmingly high dropout rate, Lapus is looking at
strengthening vocational and technical skills training by enlisting
1,500 technical instructors from TESDA so that high school graduates
could at least get a skills certificate that will enable them to become
apprentices in private companies.
Aptitude test
In January, Lapus initiated an aptitude examination to guide
students and parents in choosing career paths. He plans to help hammer
out legislation that will reinstitute what used to be called the
National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) for graduating high
schools and, thus, put in place at least a semblance of a screening
mechanism.
Before the NCEE was dropped in 1992, those who aspired to become
teachers had to place among the top 30 percent in test results,
according to Lapus. “So, do you wonder now that most teachers are
taking the easy majors? They don’t have Science and Math and they
cannot speak English,” he says.
The key is to get parents to accept that a college diploma is not the end all of education.
“There’s no shame in Japan, Germany, Australia, that they have fewer
college graduates than the Philippines. We have over a million college
graduates. Nobody wants them. They don’t have the skills,” says Lapus.
‘Frontloading’
A banker with a reputation as a crisis manager, the former Tarlac
congressman is talking about getting financial institutions and
construction companies to invest in building schools and other material
needs in these facilities.
Lapus also talks of issuing “education bonds” to overseas Filipino
workers who otherwise would put in their money to such things as real
estate and condominiums since they will be investing in the future of
their country.
“Our problem is front loading,” he says, referring to the need for
financial wherewithal to meet the needs of the ever-burgeoning
population and stressing that DepEd has a “good cash flow.”
Every child born requires DepEd to prepare for tens of thousands of
classrooms every year if the government is to meet its mandate to
provide free basic education to everyone.
“We need all those classrooms now,” he says. “We need radical
solutions … If it’s business as usual, we will not catch up. There
will be casualties every year.” With reports from Tarra Quismundo, Cyril L. Bonabente, Inquirer Research
(http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view_article.php?article_id=83560)
)
