The absence of textbooks for public school students
From its inception in the 1950s, the battle cry of the Philippine Educational Publishers Association (Pepa) is to come up with Filipino-authored textbooks responsive to the varying requirements of students: be it from the private schools, which comprise 5 percent, or from the public schools, which comprise 95 percent of the 24 million student population.
Through the numerous advocacies that Pepa pursued, Republic Act No. 8047, or the Book Publishing Development Act was finally passed into law in June 1995.
The law’s primary objective is to come up with accessible, affordable, quality textbooks with the active participation of the private sector under a multiple adoption policy.
At least 30 years have already lapsed without its objective being realized.
It was only through the initiative of then Secretary of Education Leonor Briones, who in 2019 allowed the private sector’s participation in the publication and supply of supplementary learning materials to the public school students.
One thing led to another. Through the active collaboration of National Book Development Board (NBDB) chair Dante “Klink” Ang, together with executive director Charisse Tugade, the desired collaboration between the Department of Education (DepEd) and the private sector, as mandated by law began.
Notwithstanding that the desired agreement had finally been reached through the private sector and the DepEd, with the intervention of the NBDB as a go-between, the end result was still not encouraging due to rigid adherence to the dilatory Procurement Law and many other factors as unearthed by EDCOM II.
Findings
“DepEd’s budgets utilization data” show that from 2018 to 2022 alone, a total of P12.6 billion has been allocated to textbooks and other educational materials, but only P4.5 billion (35.5 percent): has been obligated, and only P952 million (7.5 percent) has been disbursed.
From 2012 to 2022, only 27 titles were procured for Kindergarten to Grade 10.
The roll-out of the Matatag curriculum in 2024 to 2025 has been hampered by delays.
Only 35 out of 90 titles were delivered as of January 2025.
Students in many grade levels still rely on self-learning modules and teacher-made materials, which disrupt learning consistency and quality.
Publishers face a high participation cost (up to P150,000 per subject from Grades 1 to 6) for evaluation with no guarantee of selection.
Once a textbook proposal was rejected, the appeal or review process is dilatory and prolonged instead of letting the law of the market determine its importance.
The business of publishing and distribution should best be determined by market forces and not through many noneffectual bureaucratic obstacles.
This scenario on the nonpresence of nontechbook textbooks or equivalent learning materials prevails also in technological subjects in technological schools.
No wonder that technological institutions, like the Technological University of the Philippines, do not require prescribed textbooks.
The prolonged release of training regulations under Technical Education And Skills Development Authority retards on the recording of new knowledge consistent with the rapid strides in technology.
It is impossible to acquire effective learning in the absence of paralleled textbooks and learning materials.
The experience in progressive countries
In Sweden and other progressive countries, it was realized that the old way of acquiring knowledge, predominantly emanating through printed books with digital technology as supplementary support, could still be the most effective way due to retention of knowledge gained through traditional print media.
It is the prevailing trend in many progressive countries, like Japan and other Nordic countries.
The responsiveness of textbook varies from school to school, thus making them the best evaluator of a book to be chosen from a variety of textbooks and not necessarily through the DepEd evaluators, paralleled with the imposition of prohibitive rates.
The author is member of MAP Education Committee, chair and president of Rex Education and chair of Philippine Book Publishing Development Federation Inc..
