MAPping the Future

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% or from the public schools which comprise 95% of the 24 million student population.

 

Through the numerous advocacies that PEPA pursued, RA 8047 or the Book Publishing Development Act was finally passed into law in June 1995.

 

The primary objective of the Law under Sections 10 and 11 is to come up with accessible, affordable, quality textbooks with the active participation of the private sector under a multiple adoption policy.

 

At least thirty (30) years have already lapsed without its objective being realized due to the non-recognition or non-implementation of the same by the intervening Secretaries of Education.

 

It was only through the initiative of then Secretary of Education Leonor Briones, who in 2019 (through the persistent advocacy of the private sector) 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) Chairman Dante “Klink” Ang, together with Executive Director Charisse Tugade, the desired collaboration between DepEd and the private sector (which includes members of PEPA and Philbook) as mandated by law was commenced to be implemented.

 

Notwithstanding that the desired agreement had finally been reached through the private sector and DepEd, with the intervention of NBDB as a go-between, to adhere to Sections 10 and 11, 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, namely:

 

1. “DepEd’s budgets utilization data” show that from 2018 to 2022 alone, a total of PhP12.6 Billion (B) has been allocated to textbooks and other educational materials, but only PhP4.5B (35.5%): has been obligated, and only PhP952 Million (7.5%) has been disbursed.

 

2. That from 2012 to 2022, only 27 titles were procured for Kindergarten to Grade 10.

 

3. 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.

4. Students in many grade levels still rely on self-learning modules and teacher-made materials which disrupt learning consistency and quality.

 

5. Publishers face high participation cost (up to PhP150,000 per subject from Grades 1 to 6) for evaluation with no guarantee of selection.

 

6. 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.

 

7. The business of publishing and distribution should best be determined by market forces and not through many non-effectual bureaucratic obstacles.

 

8. This scenario on the non-presence of non-techbook 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 (TUP), do not require prescribed textbooks.

 

9. The prolonged release of training regulations under TESDA retards on the recording of new knowledge consistent with the rapid strides in technology.

 

10. It is impossible to acquire effective learning in the absence of paralleled textbooks and learning materials.

 

11. 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 suppletory 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.

 

12. The abolition of the mother tongue is likewise being floated as a deterrent in the acquisition of knowledge.

 

13. 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 school-based policy under RA 9155 which allows the school to determine which material best suits them should have been adopted.

 

14. What should be the appropriate materials responsive to 110 ethnolinguistic groups consisting of 12 million indigenous people?

 

15. In the matter of distribution as part of the desired supply chain, House Bill No. 2834, otherwise known as the Retail Price Maintenance Scheme which was authored by Congressman Rufus Rodrigues but archived in the 18th Congress, could be considered.

 

Amidst all the above, the saddest realization is that we have not produced diversified titles of textbooks for the public school students which is the very objective of RA 8047 or the Book Publishing Development Act. The same could help explain why we rank penultimately last in PISA and other international assessments.

 

(The author is member of MAP Education Committee, Chair and President of Rex Education and Chair of Philippine Book Publishing Development Federation, Inc.. Feedback at <map@map.org.ph> and <ddbuhain@rex.com.ph>).