The Second Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM 2 on Thursday said the Department of Education has committed to delivering 80 percent of textbooks for Grades 1, 4, and 7 by July this year.

The commitment came during was made by DepEd Bureau of Learning Resources Director Ariz Cawilan during the EDCOM 2 meeting at the University of the Philippines-BGC on Thursday.

Also, the DepEd noted that the award for successful bidders for textbooks will be issued next month while the issuance of a Notice to Proceed will be in April. Only then, the printing of textbooks will begin.

The Department claimed that it had issued a Call for Textbooks last September 2023, noting that it is an earlier date than usual.

In its Year One Report entitled "Miseducation: The Failed System of Philippine Education”, EDCOM 2 raised concerns that only 27 textbooks for Grades 1 to Grade 10 have been procured since 2012.

“Specifically, since the introduction of the K to 12 curriculum, only Grades 5 and 6 textbooks have been successfully procured", the report read.

Procurement underway

Amid the report, the EDCOM 2 urged the DepEd to implement an effective strategy to ensure timely textbook procurement for the upcoming school year

It also recommended that DepEd should consider procuring books that are already available in the market rather than engaging publishers to develop new ones.

Executive Director Dr. Karol Mark Yee said the previous timeline took about six months for printing and about six months for delivery.

“So now, they're saying that in the revised timeline, between April, May, June, July, what used to be one year will now be four months,” he said.

Senator Win Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate committee on basic education, asked DepEd if it could print at least 8 million in three months.

“Kaya ba 'yun? Kasi, coming from the old system where printing takes almost a year plus (is that possible? Because coming from the old system where printing takes almost a year plus),” he asked.

"By July, we'll have around 80 percent of textbooks for Grades 1, 4, [and] 7,” Cawilan replied.

Catch-Up Fridays

On the other hand, the EDCOM 2 also dived into the DepEd’s learning recovery program including Catch-up Fridays.

On 12 January , the DepEd issued Memorandum No. 01, s.2024—devoting every Friday to schools’ activities for improving reading skills and comprehension.

Citing EDCOM consultation, Yee lamented Catch-Up Fridays “do not appear to be structured to optimize learning recovery.”

"It seems that teachers have not been provided in-depth training on how to conduct effective reading intervention...while reading classes focus on 'reading' more texts, they do not necessarily help the students improve their reading skills,” he added.

The delving into the problems stemmed from the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment’s data in Regions IV-B, V, VI, VIII, and NCR which revealed that more than 60 percent of Grade 1 and 2 students are not yet reading at the right level, with 4 percent needing full intervention, and 24 percent of them are requiring moderate intervention.

During the meeting, the Commission also raised an observation of the “difficulty of implementing the targeted — or differentiated”— instruction in the Catch-up Fridays sessions.

“Do you give your teachers the space to do differentiated instruction in the classroom as part of learning recovery?", EDCOM 2 Commissioner Kiko Benitez asked DepEd.

In response, DepEd Undersecretary Gina Gonong said the teachers nationwide were all trained on the implementation of the National Reading Program as to how to “handle these learners on different levels.”