Alleged error-riddled textbooks pass evaluation, DepEd textbook head says

MANILA, Philippines - A Department of Education (DepEd) official said that an alleged error-riddled Filipino reading and language textbook bought repeatedly for use of public school students had passed content evaluation by a panel of academicians and DepEd evaluators in 2004.

Socorro Pilor, executive director of DepEd’s Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS) which takes care of the department’s procurement of textbooks and other instructional materials, said that since the “Landas Sa Wika” and the Landas sa Pagbasa” for Grade 6 textbooks authored by Paz Belvez and published by Dane Publishing House, Inc., had passed the 2004 content evaluation, DepEd had seen nothing wrong in buying reprints of the books in 2007 and 2008.

The IMCS had conducted a massive textbook content evaluation in 2004, Pilor said, as a result of the expose of quality textbook crusader Antonio Calipjo-Go, academic supervisor of Marian School, in Sauyo Road, Novaliches, Quezon City, of hundreds of grammatical and conceptual errors in textbook used in public schools, “Asya: Noon, Ngayon at sa Hinaharap”, published by SD Publications.

The panel of evaluators included teachers and education experts from the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University.

Pilor noted that the repeat procurement in 2007 and 2008 of the textbook titles was resorted to when their two calls for publishers to submit manuscripts for a new Filipino textbook for reading and language held last April 2006 and December 2007 were declared a failure when none of the submitted manuscripts passed evaluation.

“It was a stop-gap measure,” Pilor told the STAR.

However, Pilor said they will have the two textbook titles undergo another review by textbook evaluators in view of Go’s latest expose. “We’ll have some experts take a look at them again,” Pilor said. – Rainier Allan Ronda