The House Committee on Public Accounts is convinced that ‘nil to zero’ error in textbooks and learning materials given to students can be achieved by putting in place more stringent measures for publication standards, aside from imposing penalties against those who committed mistakes, whether intentional or not.
Committee chairman and Probinsyano Ako Partylist Rep. Jose “Bonito” Singson Jr. said they remain dissatisfied with the actions taken by the Department of Education in ensuring ‘error-free’ learning materials for basic and secondary educaiton students At the resumption of the congressional inquiry into the distribution of “error-filled’ educational materials, Singson said DepEd has yet to give lawmakers the confidence that mistakes will not happen again.
“Basically, the DepEd has not assured us that its quality assurance teams are effective. These have been in place before yet errors were still committed,” Singson said during the hearing.
He stated: “We cannot allow our youth to learn a mistake and grow with it. For us to ensure that errors are not published, we have to take stronger measures to address the situation.
Singson disclosed that the public accounts committee will also prepare recommendations to allegations that DepEd had defied provisions of Republic Act 8047 or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act.
Aside from the discovery of the erroneous educational materials, COA, in its 2018 annual audit report for DepEd, also noted that the department violated provisions of RA 8047 that directed it to phase out its book publication and distribution duties.
COA Supervising Auditor Job Aguirre confirmed that DepEd has continued to defy provisions of the RA 8047 that assigned the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the private sector the job of publishing and distributing books for elementary and secondary education.
“We confirm and we still maintain that they (DepEd) continuously violate RA 8047. But we believe that this problem can be resolved by the passage of an enabling law,” said Aguirre.
However, Aguirre also admitted that COA has not taken any action on DepEd’s failure to comply with the audit recommendation to stop encroaching into NBDB’s authority granted by RA 8047.
Deputy Speaker and 1Sagip Partylist Rep. Rodante Marcoleta decried DepEd’s apparent refusal to comply with the audit recommendations. He noted that DepEd didn’t even “find the courtesy of responding to the COA report.” Marcoleta said DepEd’s continued defiance of the COA exhortation to follow the law is “unfathomable.” “We will certainly make recommendations to make accountable all those who are responsible for any violation of an existing law,” stated Singson.
He said the House panel will also address the issues pertaining to the disbursement of government funds for the publication and distribution of error-filled books.
Earlier, Singson disclosed that filing of a bill that would penalize persons behind the preparation and publication of books and learning materials containing errors, inaccurate and false information and vulgar words.