Read Part 1: Going, gone: Mr. Go throws in the towel

Read Part 2: Sick books still used despite DepEd ban

(Last of three parts)

MANILA, Philippines—Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?

Antonio Calipjo Go, a self-styled crusader against “sick books,” has turned his back on his advocacy after a well-orchestrated barrage from newspaper columnists who questioned the integrity of his actions and an apparently apathetic public.

The question is: Who is going to protect schoolchildren from the errors that continue to hound their textbooks?

The 57-year-old Go threw in the towel and quit his job as a school academic supervisor amid the release by the Department of Education (DepEd) of a fresh batch of English textbooks this school year as part of a cycle updating learning materials with funding from the World Bank.

In spite of stringent measures for procurement and evaluation the DepEd has adopted, errors have crept into the new textbooks, according to a critique sent to the Philippine Daily Inquirer by a concerned reviewer who requested anonymity, fearing the same ton of bricks that hit Go.

“All four books, in my humble estimation, are defective,” the critic says of “English for You and Me” Reading and Language for Grades 3 and 4 which were published by Book Wise Publishing House Inc.

The English textbooks, which cost P900 million, underwent the new multilevel textbook review and “unbundled” procurement process, wherein the bidding for the textbook content is separate from the tender for printing, according to the DepEd.

Totaling 27.2 million copies of textbooks and corresponding teacher’s manuals, the English series is the second batch in the DepEd’s five-year cycle of replacing textbooks in all levels of public elementary and secondary schools.

In the findings made available to the Inquirer, the critic listed at least 300 errors in Grade 3 Reading, 80 in Grade 3 Language, 200 in Grade 4 Reading and 120 in Grade 4 Language.

There’s no ‘perfect book’

“Well, you know, I have yet to see a perfect book where there are no errors at all,” says Socorro Pilor, executive director of the DepEd’s Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS) which is in charge of reviewing textbooks used in public schools.
“We are trying our best to lessen the errors. That’s why we are involving as many people as we could so that what others cannot see during the process, hopefully, the rest of the group would be able to see,” she says.

Pilor says each set of textbooks and accompanying teacher’s manual were reviewed by at least eight people in four areas.

She says there were two evaluators per area who worked independently before they consolidated their findings in a workshop.

The first area, conducted by experts in curriculum development, ensured that the learning competencies were sufficiently developed.

Academicians from the private sector and state universities then checked the material for conceptual, pedagogical and factual errors.

The third area involved teachers who assessed the appropriateness of the language used.

In the last area, language experts reviewed the manuscripts to make sure there were no grammatical errors.

After the evaluation, the manuscripts were returned to the publishers so they could revise their materials according to IMCS recommendations.

The revised manuscripts were then reviewed by the IMCS to determine whether all of the recommendations were correctly implemented.

“It goes back to them until we are satisfied,” Pilor says.

Errors escaped eagle eyes

Prior to mass printing, the textbooks were sent to the University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila University. Consultants from UP and Ateneo reviewed the high school and elementary textbooks, respectively.

Major errors, however, still managed to escape the eagle eyes.

For example, an item on Page 93 of Grade 3 Reading says: “The small cavities of Paulo’s teeth were not filled because these teeth could be strong and healthy again by eating the right kinds of food. During his next visit, the dentist found that his teeth were harder and had stopped decaying.”

Asked for comment, Pilor points to a case during evaluation where the language used in a textbook was criticized.

“The justification of the one who used it was ‘I can’t change any part of it because it was taken as a literary piece.’ That’s what we call the literary license,” she says.

“We have to find out if they are really errors. There are certain people who might see something as wrong but on a different perspective, it might not necessarily be wrong,” Pilor says.

On Page 65 of Grade 4 Language, an activity entails students to listen to the teacher tell a story about scientists. Afterward, they are asked to answer questions which include: “Whose discovery helps doctors to cure cancer?”

There is still no cure for cancer.

Who’s to blame?

Examples of the errors were shown to Letty Sala, a member of the curriculum committee of the Center for Excellence in Public Elementary Education. She says:

“Unfortunately, there are still errors in spite of the best efforts of the DepEd to be more stringent in their review.

“The message, I think, is that even the best minds can make mistakes of oversight, which is why all of us should be part of the solution rather than looking for whom to blame. Excellence is a national endeavor and the effort of many minds—not by a single entity.”

Pilor says the DepEd encourages teachers to report errors in education materials and gives them its e-mail address and contact numbers.

“If there are errors, we would immediately do something to correct them. We can disseminate information depending on the gravity of the errors,” she says.

“In the first place, the books are owned by the publishers, so what’s the assumption? The publishers should have their own editor who would correct their manuscripts. [DepEd] would help by recommending which areas should be focused on. But the nitty gritty should be the publishers’ responsibility,” Pilor says.

In previous congressional hearings, it has been admitted that publishing houses have editors to scrutinize documents. But once the manuscripts are submitted to the IMCS, it becomes its responsibility because it evaluates and approves the textbooks, DepEd critics say.

To err is human

But Pilor says writers of textbooks are “just human”—prone to commit mistakes.

“If there were errors, they were unintentional. What’s important is that we keep on improving the process. We don’t stop when we see a chance for improvement,” she says.

“The intention to implement reforms is there. Otherwise, if it was not there, we wouldn’t have gone through the process of having so many people,” Pilor says.

Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, a trustee of the non-government organization Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation, says:

“The Philippine educational system is saddled with so many problems—from the lack of classrooms to qualified teachers to lamentable teachers’ compensation to the poor quality of textbooks. The DepEd must first and foremost manifest a firm resolve to undertake serious, sincere reforms. We are tired of motherhood statements.

“We speak of literacy and the importance of luring children to read. But what materials are to be used to entice them—those unattractive textbooks? Never mind the newsprint, but the errors are unforgivable. No wonder our students don’t read. The difficult exercise of learning to read hardly seems worth it just to ‘unlock’ the meaning of those textbooks.”

The foundation is one of many private organizations seeking to address the decline of the quality of basic education in the Philippines, of which error-filled textbooks are a factor.

The concern is that with the failure of educational reform and without access to resources, the impoverished are being deprived of a good education that is the only vehicle left for social mobility—bedeviled, as it were, by Walt Disney’s abominable creature in “The Three Little Pigs.”