A bigger audit task for DepEd

Karen Guardiana

Cebu City

Between the malicious declarations of Bato Dela Rosa and this paper’s casual column-runs on nabbings and goon brawls, there’s conspicuous normalcy in the news that may have the vigilant believe he has found the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back.

This one is certain: the Education department is incompetent. Its ludicrous victory of building only 11 classrooms out of the intended 47,000 and its failure to hire proficient textbook writers offer a mind-blowingly reckless explanation of this country’s epidemic of ignorance.

Filipinos are not schooled to the degree that basic education was set up to deliver. When asked to explain, the department in question responds in fluent gibberish.

I echo Jerry Tundag when he said the country wasn’t ready for K to 12. It was done in haste for the petty purpose of grabbing merit, all to the cost of the taxpayer.

Still, one cannot help but speculate: weren’t the people who put us in this mud pit lawyers and educators of the highest order?

Perhaps the Education department has a bigger audit task than the COA—one that not only involves textbook facts but something deeper and harder to teach: that of values.