As millions of students will virtually attend the opening of classes in public schools today (Sept. 13), former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. exhorted the Department of Education to make sure that the modules to be used for the blended learning would be error-free.
A combination of online learning and printed materials or self-tutoring modules remained the mode of educational instruction being adopted by the DepEd for SY 2021-2022 as the country continues to grapple with the surge of Covid19 pandemic in the country.
Marcos lamented that students have already complained of learning less last school year when the learning method was first adopted due to the pandemic and having erroneous modules would only contribute more to the deterioration of the country’s educational standards.
“They don’t learn much anymore because of internet connectivity problems and distractions that they may also have to contend with in their homes, if the modules that serve as their textbooks have a lot of errors, our youth certainly will not be able to learn,” Marcos said.
An undersecretary of the DepEd has admitted that from October 2020 to June 2021, there were 163 reported errors in the learning materials used during the previous school year. Of these reported errors, 155 were confirmed to have followed validation by the DepEd.
Marcos stressed that the DepEd should have created committees tasked to review and edit learning materials to ensure that they are well-written and prevent a repeat of last school year’s fiasco.
The DepEd has received criticisms following numerous complaints that the modules were written without regard to grammar, logic, and consistency. The DepEd has defended, though, that the majority of the errors were in learning materials produced at the regional level.
“Even if the learning materials are made in the regions, there should be a committee that reviews them. How will the modules be educational materials if they are wrong? Previously, in textbooks, there was already such an issue, so please don’t do it again because the children are miserable,” Marcos stressed.
