The Education Of Miss Briones. Otherwise, How DepEd Could Have More Wisely Spent P100 Billion Pursuing Learning Goals For The Country’s Students

As I write this, I’m thinking of the millions of farmers who need
e-learning themselves in modern productive and prosperity-leading materials and methods in their farming. 

Perhaps the DA can learn from the DepEd?

Above, you are looking at the cover of a printout of educational materials conceived for and published by the Department of Education, DepEd, under Secretary of Education Leonor Briones. (images: modules[1] from Philippine Basic Education; E-Learning[2] from Deccan Herald)

The “For Teachers” book looks good, doesn’t it?
Looks good, yes.
But looks deceive!

DepEd calls them Self-Learning Modules, SLMs – now, no matter how good the SLMs are, the almost-P100 Billion budget could have been spent 100 times more wisely!

This is a teacher speaking, BSA major in Ag Education, UP Los Baños 1965 graduate, Civil Service Professional Level, passing the exam at 80.6%.

And the grade I am now going to give the above Self-Learning Modules book is 4. Yes, 4. On my alma mater’s University of the Philippines’ grading scale[3], 4 is Conditional.

That is not saying the Secretary of Education is unintelligent – it is just saying that her advisers on e-learning are not that smart digitally!

DepEd’s Self-Learning Modules are the most
maximally expensive educational materials
I have ever seen – and only minimally useful.

Instead of being printed, the SLMs should have instead been uploaded in their digital forms for both teachers and students – and worked onscreen, not on paper. In such a way, the first attempt at learning could be graded; after which, with the original e-copies, any number of repeated readings and workings on same materials are free, to be counted as self-learning without charge against the students themselves.

More than 24.7 million students – 22.5 million in public schools – enrolled for 2020-2021[4] (ANN, 09 October 2020, “DepEd: Self-Learning Modules Are 'Quality Assured' Despite Errors,” ABS-CBN.com). As of the date ANN reports, 667 million SLMs had been printed. Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto had the low estimate of a total of P93.6 Billion needed to print all the pages of the modules, at a printing cost of P1/page (Doña Magsino, 17 August 2020, “DepEd Needs P30B More For Printing Of Self-Learning Modules – Recto[5],” GMAnetwork.com).

Option: With that gargantuan P93.6 Billion budget, in a 1-ha area purchased in each of the 1,488 towns in the country, DepEd can construct an Internet zone-schoolshop (the cities can take care of their own) – that gives P62.9 Million for each Internet zone-schoolshop and should be more than enough for area, buildings, facilities, equipment, Internet connections, supplies and salaries.

With Miss Briones’ Self-Learning Modules that expand expenses and limit learning rewards, as a teacher, I want to cry. As a self-taught digital writer, editor & desktop publisher, I want to cry my heart out.

Reading and thinking of the P93.6 Billion the Department of Education, DepEd, will have spent by the end of this year 2020 for those self-limiting SLMs, I want to cry a river!@517

 

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[1]https://www.philippinesbasiceducation.us/2013/05/deped-k-to-12-modules-for-sale-in-2013.html

[2]https://www.deccanherald.com/content/639382/how-make-digital-education-more.html

[3]https://www.ac.upd.edu.ph/images/stories/forms/UniversityGuidelines.pdf

[4]https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/09/20/deped-self-learning-Modules-are-quality-assured-despite-errors

[5]https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/751678/deped-needs-p30b-more-for-printing-of-self-learning-Modules-recto/story/