Substandard
Since the administration of Joseph Estrada, scandals have hounded the production of textbooks. At the time, influence-peddling and corruption were blamed for the publication of textbooks riddled with typographical, grammatical and even factual errors.Today no one is being accused of influence-peddling at the Department of Education to favor any particular textbook producer. Experts have also been called in to check the contents of textbooks. But errors remain, as the country’s most zealous textbook watchdog has again announced to the nation. Educator Antonio Calipjo Go has incurred the ire and disdain of a number of his peers for pointing out textbook errors. Some quarters have challenged certain points he has raised, saying he was the one who had erred in his appreciation of grammar and facts. Many of the items he has cited, however, are in fact erroneous, and some mistakes are downright atrocious.
The problem of substandard textbooks is particularly worrisome in public schools, which rely on book handouts from the government for students’ needs. With an ever-growing student population, public schools suffer from an acute shortage of textbooks. It is not unusual for one classroom of up to 80 students to share only one book per subject. If that book is riddled with errors, and the teacher lacks the qualifications to detect the mistakes, the entire school year will be wasted on what we describe as miseducation.
With many of the country’s best teachers now working overseas, there aren’t enough educators left to detect textbook errors, especially in teaching English or subjects that are taught in English. Exclusive private schools have it easier; students who live in English-speaking households can themselves detect grammatical mistakes. But factual errors cannot be detected quickly enough.
The government has been making noises about the need to stop the deterioration in the quality of Philippine education. If the government is sincere in addressing the problem, it should give priority to improving the quality of textbooks. Companies that publish textbooks riddled with errors must be blacklisted by the government. In addition, prosecutors should consider filing appropriate charges against both the company owners and the education officials who approved the book deal for wasting public funds. Unless this problem is addressed decisively, millions of Filipinos will face a bleak future because of substandard education.
