House bill seeks to prevent textbook errors

A lawmaker from southern Philippines has filed a bill seeking to improve the Department of Education’s (DepEd) system of producing textbooks to prevent erroneous contents by amending a 15-year-old law. In filing House Bill 6936, Camiguin Rep. Pedro Romualdo said the DepEd should commission accredited public and private institutions that have technical expertise to develop instructional materials and textbooks. He said the DepEd should also provide additional technical personnel at the Instructional Materials Council Secretariat “to perform editorial functions like reviewing, editing, proofreading, recommending appropriate illustrations, checking the book design and layout prior to mass printing." Romualdo’s proposed measure seeks to amend Republic Act No. 8047, or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act, which was signed into law in 1995. The law provides for a National Book Development Board and a National Book Development Plan “to promote the continuing development of the book publishing industry, with the active participation of the private sector, to ensure an adequate supply of affordable, quality-produced books not only for the domestic but also for the export market." But despite the existence of a law, textbooks allegedly riddled with factual inaccuracies still get published by the DepEd and distributed in public schools. DepEd secretary Armin Luistro aims to curb this by posting textbook manuscripts online for public scrutiny. In the present setup, DepEd textbooks undergo yearly evaluation by a team of master teachers, subject area experts, content experts, and language experts from both within the agency and top academic institutions. Books are evaluated not only for errors, but also for their learning competencies, grammar, and use of language and visuals. Corruption had also been blamed for error-filled textbooks. Three years ago, Antonio Go, an academic supervisor of the Marian School in Sauyo, Quezon City, said textbook errors resulted from a supposed secretive evaluation process that bred graft and corruption. KBK, GMANews.TV