Opinion
EDUCATION
Proofreading is a Must
by Lesly Guevarra
Posted on December 17, 2020
To provide the promised quality education, the government must first recognize where and what they should invest in.
DepEd officially opened classes on October 5, 2020, and claimed it as a day of “victory.” DepEd ensured that they will still provide quality education despite the new “blended learning” approach during this pandemic.
However, a few weeks after the opening of classes, DepEd received numerous complaints from parents and students calling out technical errors on the given Self-Learning Modules (SLMs). On top of these minor errors, students also raised more serious concerns about the “problematic” and “inappropriate” contents of the learning materials.
Around early October, a Grade 11 student in a public high school in San Mateo, Rizal reported malicious content of one of their modules, said in a report published by Manila Bulletin. The student sent the photos of the “alarming and inappropriate” contents to a news outlet.
The module contained a passage entitled “Isolated Camp,” which talks about the practices military men do for “fun” inside the military camp. The student claims that the content of the module is inappropriate for their age.
These incidents caused the netizens to criticize and question the reliability of the learning modules given by DepEd. They also voiced out that they find the errors and content problems “really alarming.”
Education Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio admitted that errors got through despite the implementation of the Quality Assurance (QA) protocols. However, DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones still assures everyone that they are taking action to address the said problems.
To quote what Briones said in a virtual press briefing, “We would like to assure you that we are doing legally permissible to trace and to track all the materials which are attributed to the DepEd so that this incidence if they will not be repeated at least, will be minimized.”
As an additional response to the controversies, DepEd also announced the creation of the “DepEd Error Watch” last October 12. The purpose of the program is to receive reports about the learning materials and direct them to appropriate offices for correction.
They also encouraged the public to refrain from posting their complaints on social media sites, and instead, direct their complaints to the teachers or to people in the Error Watch Program.
However, in spite of the creation of the Error Watch, DepEd still found 41 errors in the given Self-Learning Modules as of October 23. The mistakes were composed of 20 factual errors, 7 computational mistakes, while others are common errors in spelling, format, printing, grammar, and typographical.
Similarly, in the second week of November, another controversial content from the distributed learner materials went viral on social media. The Teacher-Made Assessment for a Grade 10-MAPEH class was said to have body-shamed actress Angel Locsin, calling her an “obese person.”
With these being said, it seems like the quality education that DepEd promised on the opening of classes is becoming blurry and out of reach. But since the academic year has already started, the department doesn’t have any other choice but to step up their game in ensuring the quality of the modules content.
Even Senator Riza Hontiveros urged the DepEd to hire proofreaders to help address the issues in the SLMs. She also suggested forming a technical working group of master teachers and experts who will create, assess, and evaluate the learning modules before distributing them to the students.
As said by Senator Hontiveros, “We need human resources to fulfill the promise of quality education lalo na ngayong may pandemya (especially during this pandemic).”
Distance learning is new to everyone, and it requires massive adjustment to our time and efforts. However, if DepEd truly wants to provide quality education, then they should invest more in human resources that could help them ensure the appropriateness and reliability of their learning materials. #