The Senate seeks to investigate the procurement of textbooks and other learning materials by the Department of Education.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Basic Education, filed proposed Senate Resolution 972 amid the findings of the Southeast Asian Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) and the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) that several students had incomplete textbooks.

It was revealed in the EDCOM II’s Year One report the DepEd only managed to procure 27 textbook titles out of the 90 required for Grades 1 to 10 since the K to 12 curriculum was Introduced in 2013.

Gatchalian said the EDCOM also found that only learners in Grades 5 and 6 have complete sets of textbooks for all subjects.

“Considering the significant role of textbooks and other learning materials in enabling learners to acquire the necessary knowledge and develop critical thinking skills, there is an urgent need to address problems in the DepEd's procurement of textbooks and other learning materials,” Gatchalian wrote in the resolution.

He said the inquiry is necessary to identify and address procurement challenges and gaps in the education system. It would also help in the crafting of complementary or amendatory legislation.

During the EDCOM II consultation with the DepEd, the National Book Development Board and groups of private textbook publishers have identified several procurement issues such as insufficient development time and a prolonged review process.

Other issues include high participation costs and pricing issues.

The EDCOM report also flagged the low utilization of the budget allocated for textbooks and other instructional materials.

In between 2018 and 2022, more than P12.6 billion was allocated for textbooks and other instructional materials. However, only 35.3 percent or P4.47 billion of this allocation was obligated and only 7.5 percent, or P951.9 million was disbursed.

In the absence of textbooks, Gatchalian said learners and teachers use learners' manuals, self-learning modules (SLM), activity sheets, and other locally developed learning resources.

“The production of SLMs was charged against the learning resources under the flexible learning options and did not use the funds allocated for the procurement of textbooks. however, concerns were raised about the quality of SLMs and teachers extracting content from copyrighted textbooks,” he added.

Gatchalian then cited the SEA-PLM 2019 result which revealed that 26.2 percent of Grade 5 learners in the Philippines either did not have textbooks or shared the use of a language textbook with one or more learners.

The SR 972 has been referred to the Senate Committee on Finance as the primary committee, with a secondary referral to the Committee on Basic Education.