MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Education (DepEd) belied a Commission on Audit (COA) report that criticized the 2011 purchase of 16.3 million newly-printed textbooks that are “no longer responsive” to the K to 12 program.

“DepEd disagrees that the P608 million-worth of textbooks procured in 2011 for SY 2012-2013 are obsolete and a waste of the State’s resources. In fact, these textbooks are still being used as reference materials in our schools,” the department said in a statement Monday, April 6.

A COA report released March 31 urged DepEd to identify and hold accountable officials responsible for the procurement of the outdated textbooks, which the state audit agency called “unnecessary expenses.”

But DepEd on Monday defended the purchase, saying they even released a series of memorandums in 2012 and 2013 on how to use the textbooks to support the new curriculum.

These include detailed notes on how to integrate the textbooks’ content to core competencies in the K to 12, down to specific pages needed to achieve certain learning objectives.

DepEd reiterated the textbooks may be old, but they are not useless and obsolete. In fact, they’re even lower in cost – a detail that COA failed to mention in its report. 

“The average price per textbook is only around P37 per textbook, which is even lower than the unit price when DepEd bought those titles several years back,” the statement read.

It also explained that changing the curriculum doesn’t mean changing all content and performance competencies.

“Curriculum is the product of review and revision based on student achievement and development in subject areas. Changes in the English, Mathematics, and Science curriculum guides were made to articulate better content and performance standards. However, the scope of content and skills remains faithful to what learners should develop and master at the end of basic education,” DepEd added. 

As for the delays in the delivery of millions of K to 12-compliant textbooks for school year 2013-2014, the department again cited as reason the “tedious task” of creating learning materials contextualized into 19 mother-tongue languages.

COA earlier said DepEd’s “lack of preparedness” in implementing K to 12 “deprived the students their access to quality education.”

But despite the delays, DepEd said they have resorted to alternative means of delivery, such as putting up the K to 12 curriculum on the DepEd website for viewing and dowloading.

Learning materials can also be accessed through DepEd’s learning portal, the LRMDS. – Rappler.com

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