"In view of the alleged quality issues raised in our textbooks and to ensure transparency and fairness, I have ordered the Department of Education to review all existing textbooks in public high schools by external subject area experts," he said in a statement yesterday.
"In the interest of quality education and for the welfare of our students, we deem it urgent and necessary to reexamine the contents of our textbooks, particularly history, English, science and mathematics, most of which were released in year 2000," Abad said.
He said the Department of Education (DepEd) will be coming up with modules to guide teachers to spot and correct errors in textbooks when discussing the subject matter with their students in class.
"We want to take a more pro-active (approach)," he said. "We’re going to do an inventory of all the textbooks that are still in circulation, and then make an assessment," he said.
Abad said they will also investigate why certain textbooks disapproved for use in public schools were still in the official list approved for purchase and use by students.
"We have to find out why it is happening," he said. The DepEd will take steps to correct the errors and conduct an inventory of all textbooks being used in public schools, Abad said.
Recently, the DepEd came under fire from Antonio Calipjo-Go, an academic supervisor of Marian School in Sauyo, Novaliches in Quezon City, for the proliferation of errors — ranging from the inane to the grave — in textbooks used by public school students.
Go said he had found 431 factual, grammatical and other errors in the history textbook, "Asya: Nuon, Ngayun at sa Hinaharap."
The problem of error-riddled textbooks was not confined to public schools since an estimated 40 percent of textbooks used in private schools also bore a multitude of errors, he added.
Last Monday, Go presented to reporters three textbooks, aside from "Asya: Nuon, Ngayun at sa Hinaharap," that were replete with errors.
Go said one of the these textbooks, "Science and Technology in the Modern World II," authored by Maria Olivares, Eloisa Bermio and Juanita Cruz and published by Diwa Scholastic Press, was supposed to have been disapproved by the DepEd.
Despite being disapproved, the textbook has continued to surface in the DepEd’s list approved for purchase in the past years, and was being used in public high schools until this school year, he added.
Go said the two other erroneous textbooks are "Science and Technology in the Modern World," authored by Marlene Gutierrez, also published by Diwa Scholastic Press; and "Kasaysayan ng Daigdig III," authored by Teofista Vivar, Nieva Discipulo, Priscilla Rillo and Zenaida de Leon and published by SD Publications.
He has been raising countless errors in "Science and Technology in the Modern World II" since Feb. 18, 2002 in a newspaper’s letters to the editor section, he added.
In one letter, Go said Education Undersecretary for Programs Fe Hidalgo answered that the textbook had been disapproved during an evaluation under the DepEd’s Social Expenditure Management Project in 2001.
As seen in the case of "Science and Technology in the Modern World II," it was obvious that the DepEd was buying and distributing textbooks that it had disapproved, Go said.
Go caused a stir last month when he exposed the errors in "Asya: Nuon, Ngayun at sa Hinaharap."