No study yet on poor PISA results; Gatchalian feels sorry for learners

MANILA, Philippines— Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said he feels hopeless and sorry that a council tasked to improve teacher education has not made any research on the country’s poor performance in reading, math, and science.

During Thursday’s hearing of the Senate committee on basic education,  Gatchalian brought up the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 results released late last year where Filipino students fared worst among 79 countries.

“I’d like to apologize that presently we haven’t done any formal research in the council as regards to the result of the PISA but we will continuously coordinate with the Deped (Department of Education)…to trace and find out the real reasons or the factors why we had very low PISA results,” said Runvi  Manguerra, executive director of the Teacher Education Council.

Manguerra though assured that they continue to train teachers to improve the learning outcomes of students.

Gatchalian pressed the official, saying he was surprised that until now  the council has not conducted  any research when the PISA results were released a year ago.

The senator also chided Manguerra for giving  general and “hodge-podge’ answers to his questions.

“TEC, for me, is a very important institution to put all the important stakeholders together and come up with a strategy to address our problem but instead I’m getting some hodge-podge answers without any concrete research and concrete evidence so no wonder our outcomes are very low,” Gatchalian said.

“And like I said the PISA results came out 2019, everyone was surprised, awakening those are the descriptions but then again  you’re telling  there was no research conducted by the TEC  so it’s quite disappointing to be honest about it and I was hoping to get hope but instead I’m feeling hopelessness after hearing from TEC so  I don’t know what to say but I feel sorry  for our learners,” the senator  added.

/MUF