The Department of Education (DepEd) said Friday that it would tap publishing companies to develop and print self-learning modules for the third and fourth quarters of the school year 2020-2021.
More than 25 million students are currently learning through DepEd’s modules due to lack of internet access.
“In the next quarters, we are already moving to the process of really engaging the publishing industry, and our part will now be confined to the evaluation,” Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said in a Senate hearing.
“Kaya nagkaroon ng kapasidad tayo na mag-develop ng first and second quarter, eh ginawa ‘yan noong time na hindi pa nag-uumpisa ang school year at ang na-engage natin diyan ay mga guro din, mga master teacher,” he added.
“Ngayon naman mahihirapan na rin sila tumulong sa paggawa ng content na ito for the subsequent quarters because their time now is devoted to the teaching,” he further said.
Malaluan said the DepEd aims to improve the quality assurance process further to minimize errors in self-learning modules.
He also asked for the public’s understanding since DepEd had to prepare the modules for a limited time amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
DepEd to outsource self-learning modules publication
“We had to rely also on locally developed learning resources, and the decentralization increased the [number] of SLMs that are not all quality-assured in the Central Office level,” he said.
The DepEd official also acknowledged that some substantive errors needed to be addressed with “deeper intervention.”
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, Senate committee on basic education chairperson, Gatchalian agreed with Malaluan.
“I don’t think that the maker of that drawing had any malicious intent, but the understanding and appreciation and also the embedded stereotyping is worrisome… We really need to look at teacher education as a whole,” the senator said.
Malaluan also revealed that some regional directors have observed students could not answer the self-learning modules entirely.
“May mga feedback na hindi natatapos ng mga bata ‘yung activity sheets. In other words, nire-return nang hindi kumpleto ang sagot,” he said.
“‘Yung mga batang nakikita nilang nahihirapan ay ginagawa nilang optional ‘yung ibang mga tanong doon sa activity sheets,” he said.