MANILA, Philippines — As error-filled learning materials snowball and only in the first week of classes in public schools, the Department of Education (DepEd) admitted to one of at least 30 modular errors and a mistake in one of its television lessons.
At a press briefing on Monday, Diosdado San Antonio, education undersecretary for curriculum and instruction, said one error involved a module printed in black and white instructing children to match colors with their names.
Self-learning modules (SLMs) containing this error underwent quality assurance in the DepEd Central Office, which is responsible for reviewing the content and language of learning materials, San Antonio explained.
“What we will do is issue an errata and remind teachers the next day to explain to students that that particular item contains an error that needs to be corrected,” he said.
In the past week, photos of modules with spelling errors and “impossible” tasks, such as drawing more than 800 stars in a box, circulated on social media and angered netizens who urged the DepEd to thoroughly inspect materials before distributing these to schools.
But while the DepEd acknowledged these errors, San Antonio stressed that some modules were locally produced by division offices and regional offices that had their own internal quality control systems.
Used in limited areas
In San Antonio’s report, he cited 18 instances that error-filled modules were used in limited areas and not nationwide while the DepEd still could not determine the origin of 15 others.
Officials were also in the process of procuring assistance from experts that would serve as “additional ears, eyes and hands” in boosting their efforts to thoroughly review SLMs and other content, such as lessons shown on DepEd TV.
At the same time, San Antonio emphasized that such complaints may be coursed through the department’s “Oplan Balik Eskwela” hotlines, where personnel could forward concerns to the affected strands within the agency.
For his part, Alain Pascua, education undersecretary for administration, admitted there was an error in one of its mathematics episodes aired last week and quality control fell short.
“But we are thinking of ways to solve and correct these TV episodes [that have errors],” he said.
Abram Abanil, director for information and communications technology services, assured the public that the DepEd was working to correct the solution error in the mathematical equation 2x=0, in which “0” was used as a divisor instead of “2” to get the correct answer.
Under the DepEd TV workflow, a final review by the DepEd team is conducted together with a subject expert before an episode is aired and watched by millions of students through free and cable TV and digital platforms.
On Monday, the agency launched DepEd Error Watch, which aims to receive and collate reports of errors found in learning materials, such as SLMs and TV episodes, that will be forwarded to appropriate offices for validation and correction.
The DepEd urged the public to report such incidents to errorwatch@deped.gov.ph or 0961-6805334. INQ