Schools open amid textbook boo-boos

Asmore than 20 million Filipino students trooped back to school this June, the Department of Education again found itself in the middle of a controversy over its multibillion-peso textbook project.

Allegations that the textbooks provided by DepEd are “replete with major historical, technical, subs-tantive, grammatical errors and discrepancies” resurfaced, even as some publishing companies complained before the Supreme Court regarding alleged irregularities in the textbook bidding process.

The DepEd came out with a 21-page ‘Errata Guide’ to correct some 269 “glaring factual, grammatical and other errors” in 11 social studies textbooks and teachers’ manuals. The textbook boo-boos were first raised by Antonio Calipjo Go, academic supervisor of the Marian School in Quezon City in 2004.

Publishing an errata guide was not enough, however, according to the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT). There are more fundamental concerns that the DepEd has not yet addressed, ACT chairperson Antonio Tinio said. Among these are the way many history textbooks “gloss over the Philipine-American War or exhibit a bias for the martial law regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.”

ACT and a group of veteran employees of the DepEd also called on top officials of the department “to break up the so-called textbook cartel.” Secretary Jesli Lapus himself admitted that a group of suppliers has been cornering huge textbook contracts.

Textbook publishing in the Philippines is a very lucrative industry. In 2005 and 2006, the government spent some P3.42 billion on textbooks and instructional materials. In the next two years, the DepEd will spend P4.23 billion for the procurement of 70,602,573 textbooks and other instructional materials.

Source:

http://archive.inquirer.net

• HRF Volume 4 Number 1 January - March 2007

• HRF Volume 3 Number 4 October - December 2006

• HRF Volume 3 Number 3
July - September 2006

• HRF Volume 3 Numbers 1 & 2 January - June 2006

• HRF Volume 2 Number 4 October - December 2005

• HRF Volume 2 Number 3
July - September 2005

• HRF Volume 2 Number 2
April - June 2005

• HRF Volume 1 Number 2
April - June 2004