EDITORIAL - DepEd better know what it is doing

One post making rounds in social media right now is that one showing the glaring mistakes in a televised lesson for Grade 8 English from the Department Education.

“Tagaytay City is known for wonderful picturesque of the majestic Mount Taal. What does picturesque mean?” the lesson read.

It was supposed to be a multiple choice question, but not only was the sentence erroneously worded; the choices were also awkward.

This was only one error that was caught, what if there are others?

If DepEd puts out this quality of instruction during this quarantine period, we can expect the quality of education of our children to suffer even more.

We are sure people still remember that news about Filipino students testing last in an international survey when it came to reading and second to the last when it came to science and math.

Just in case people need to be reminded, that was the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 test that had the Philippines hugging the bottom of a list of 79 countries.

We have to remember that that test was administered when our students were attending classes during normal times. By normal times we mean when they were free to come to school, when they were able to approach the teacher with questions even after classes, when they were able to access any kind of learning materials anytime they wanted, when they could ask for help from other faculty, among other things.

Now one can only wonder how our quality of education will further deteriorate under our current situation due to the pandemic when students have limited access to teachers, when online distractions threaten to compete for the student’s attention, when instruction is limited to watching someone talking over a gadget --for the lucky ones who can afford them.

Yes, there is interaction, but it is limited and not the kind that encourages learning or promotes social skills.

For the sake of our children’s future, and our future as well, we hope that education officials know what they are doing in promoting this new kind of learning.

We say our future as well because in a few scant years, these same students will be the ones entering the workforce, manning the various offices, and assuming the mantle of leadership --essentially running this country.