Sen. Risa Hontiveros appeals to public not to blame teachers over erroneous modules; says lack of preparation and ‘rushed’ school opening to blame
Senator Risa Hontiveros on Monday urged the public not to blame teachers over the alleged erroneous modules found in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) self-learning modules (SLMs), saying it should be instead attributed to the seemingly “rushed” opening of classes.
Hontiveros said it is highly unfair to hurl criticisms towards teachers, pointing out that DepEd’s failure to standardize and strictly evaluate learning materials is the reason why there were errors in the modules.
“It is highly unfair na sa mga guro isisi itong mga mali sa modules. Nangangahulugan lang ito na hindi pa rin 100% ready ang sistema noong nagbukas ang klase. This is a sign na kinulang sa preparasyon ang mga schools at minadali ang pagbubukas ng klase, (It’s highly unfair that we blame our teachers over the erroneous modules. It only means that our education system is not yet 100 percent ready to open classes. This is a sign they lacked preparation in schools and they rushed the opening of classes),” Hontiveros explained.
“May mga kaso pa na sariling sikap na gumawa ng modules ang ilang regions dahil hindi na kinayang maglabas ng standardized learning modules ng DepEd Central Office (There are also cases that some regions had to make their own modules because the DepEd Central Office were pressed for time to release standardized learning modules),” she pointed out.
Hontiveros then urged the DepEd to consider hiring retrenched private school teachers to augment its workforce and help address the compounding problems arising in distance learning.
“We need human resources to fulfill the promise of quality education lalo na ngayong may pandemya (especially during this pandemic),” the senator said.
“We need proofreaders, we need people who can help improve our learning materials, we need more teachers, and we need learning assistants para sa mga magulang na walang kakayahan gabayan ang kanilang mga anak,” she reiterated.
Hontiveros said DepEd should form a technical working group comprised of master teachers and experts who will efficiently design, craft, vet, and screen SLMs before distributing these to schools.
She said she believes the standardization of SLMs, will lessen the tasks of teachers already dealing with heavy teaching loads.