An official of the Department of Education (DepEd) on Thursday said that 80 percent of the Self-Learning Modules (SLMs) for the Second Quarter have been quality assured by its Central Office to ensure that these are appropriate for students in various grade levels.

DepEd Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio told the Manila Bulletin that for the current grading period of the School Year (SY) 2020-2021, “80 percent of SLMs for Q2 are CO quality assured.”

This, San Antonio added, is a “significant improvement” compared to the Quarter 1 when only around "50% of the SLMs" underwent quality assurance in the DepEd Central Office.

The self-learning module, according to DepEd, is a “primary learning resource for distance learning” - which is either printed or digital - focusing on the development of one or several related Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs) in a learning area or subject area.

MELCs refer to the “competencies necessary to develop a learner’s practical and lifelong skills for learning amidst a crisis” such as the COVID-19 pandemic - among others.

SLMs are “interactive, self-contained, self-instructional and compact” with a learning timeframe suggested by the teacher in accordance with the DepEd policy. An SLM, DepEd explained, is developed and intended primarily for the use of students outside the classroom setting - especially when classes are “disrupted that would limit face-to-face interaction between the learner and the teacher.”

As of Dec. 29, San Antonio said that the second quarter of the current school year would have 893 total MECLs throughout and there would be around 708 SLMs that are expected to be produced.

“Among the total SLMs being quality assured by composite team of central office and regional learning resource evalutors,” San Antonio said.

Based on the latest data from DepEd, there are 468 SLMs “ready for printing” while 80 of them are for the “final layout.”

Meanwhile, a total of 66 SLMs are for “final checking of the specialist” and 58 are undergoing a review of the revised version by the assigned specialist.

A total of 23 SLMs are also on the “major revision status care” of the assigned regions and while 13 SLMs are in the “conformance review stage.”

To help ensure the quality of SLMS used in the modular distance learning modality, DepEd also issued the guidelines on the evaluation of SLMs for Quarters 3 and 4 for the current school year as contained in DepEd Order 001 series of 2021 dated Jan. 4.

This policy, DepEd said, aims to “establish a systematic evaluation process that may lead to the procurement of SLMs” for 3rd and 4th Quarters for SY 2020-2021.