Continuity needed in the education arena
It’s rather disconcerting to have Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Jesli Lapus fend off rumors that he’s on his way out. The name of former Senator Tessie Aquino Oreta who, I believe, is related to the Secretary, has been floated around as a replacement. But our view is that while she may have done well in pursuing her advocacies on education as a member of the House and the Senate, it makes little sense to ease out somebody who is doing exceedingly well in the post.
Education is such a critical area in our national development program, and reforms and policies need to be institutionalized if we are to expect any long-term and significant improvement here.
Just a little over a year in his post, Secretary Lapus has done his job well. The DepEd National Employees Union (DepEd NEU) has attested to this. It’s an assessment that is no doubt shared by many in the academe, civil society and even the international academic community.
Why is that so? Well, Lapus has revamped the textbook procurement process and in so doing, redeemed our public school system in more ways than one. For starters, textbook quality has vastly improved with the reforms he set in motion, not to mention that cost has already been cut by half. More importantly, transparency and accountability have been restored in the public education system. Done with several bold strokes since he took over the DepEd helm, I dare say that Secretary Lapus has proven his mettle where it matters.
No doubt, continuity is important to steer reforms in the education sector. Secretary Lapus himself has pointed out that at the very least, an administrator needs three years to make sure the reforms stick. At best, six years is needed to institutionalize any meaningful change.
I’m not surprised that on the first rumbling of an exit, the DepEd-NEU voiced its strong objections. Obviously, Lapus has gained the respect of the education bureaucracy, which is the largest in the national government. According to the DepEd union, Lapus has lived up to the five parameters it set for all education secretaries: no politicking, professional management of the department, respect for the rights of public sector unionism, management transparency and continuation of educational reforms.
As we all know, more than mere acceptance by the bureaucracy, their active cooperation can spell the difference between success or failure of a government program or project.
What probably impressed the DepEd union was Lapus’ moves to bring credibility back to the procurement of textbooks for the public school system. Following the discovery of inexcusable content errors in various textbooks, the DepEd under Lapus’ watch has put in place a new procurement process, wherein book content is bid out separately from the printing procurement. DepEd has also banned the evaluators responsible for the errors that so riled various segments of civil society and educators.
With these reforms in place, DepEd secures the best quality textbook manuscripts and gets them printed at the best possible price as a result of a wider playing field of bidders. In fact, the cost of textbooks has already been cut by half, and the quality of the paper has been significantly improved as well. We expect the cost of textbooks to further go down because of these reform measures, Lapus noted last month when DepEd announced the textbook procurement reforms.
To further entrench these reforms, Lapus has engaged independent and highly-respected educators, experts and civil society groups to watch over the evaluation, procurement and delivery processes for textbooks. Thus, the Consortium of Civil Society Organizations (CCSO) serves as an oversight committee to ensure transparency and accountability in DepEd’s Textbook Procurement Program.
Among the groups represented in the CCSO are the Ateneo School of Government, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Rotary Club of Manila, the Transparency and Accountability Network, Procurement Watch, CODE-NGO, Namfrel, Boy and Girl Scouts of the
This has so impressed the international academic community that the Philippine textbook procurement program was recently adjudged best practice worthy of emulation by the rest of the world. What a sharp turnaround from an earlier perception that the procurement system was riddled with irregularities made evident by glaring errors in certain textbooks!
For taking charge in redeeming the government’s public education system before its critics and the international community, Lapus deserves our applause, certainly not the boot. While the textbook procurement revamp is itself quite an achievement already, it is only one aspect of what needs to be done.
Already, Lapus has been working on improving access to education, especially for those who can hardly afford it. His responses have been systemic, such as a reading program that prepares toddlers for primary education, health and nutrition interventions that reduce the drop-out rate among school-age children, and strengthened technical and vocational education curriculum at the high-school level in order to resolve problems of unemployment and skills-and-job mismatch.
Another of Lapus’ initiatives is the Cyber Education Project slated for implementation next year, which would result in P60 billion in operational savings for the department in terms of training, communications expenses and textbook procurement. Under the CyberEd Project, over 36,000 public elementary and secondary schools will be linked through a national network for education, making learning available to students from remote areas through virtual classrooms.
All these initiatives need continuity in order to make a dent on the country’s education challenges. The last thing we need are distractions that get in the way of reforms. So, to those nitpicking over Lapus, please give him a break. The guy is doing his job right.
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