Education experts press DepEd reforms

[Lee]

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TWO noted education experts urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to decentralize its governance structure and take a good look at the recent results of an international assessment as it introduces reforms in the country's educational system.

In an online interview Saturday, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres SJ, a member of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) advisory council, said the DepEd should have more autonomy in implementing its curriculum, preferably at the regional or the divisional level.

"I don't know if you realize that there are only three signing authorities: the secretary, the division secretary and the principals ... but you have 800,000 teachers, 45,000 elementary schools ... we have to find a structure that is more decentralized so that it can be more effective," Nebres said.

He said it would be great if Edcom also reformed the K to 12 system and created a more decentralized DepEd.

In a separate interview, Dr. Allan Bernardo, a professor at the De La Salle University and member of the Edcom 2 Standing Committee on Basic Education, said the results of the country's participation in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) have a big impact on the young generation's educational performance.

The Philippines is among the biggest laggards in the PISA exam, with the lowest math, reading and science scores.

"The results still show that over 80 percent of students who participated in PISA were still performing below expected standards ... so you can imagine what are the implications of this generation of young people who we expect to contribute to our economy in the next 10, 20, 30 years, who can't do math," Bernardo said.

He also said the PISA results of Filipino students are unaffected by their socioeconomic status but warns that the data should be "looked further."

"This kind of reflects that we're really at the bottom and we're all squished there ... it just means that even those from the higher income families, even those going to the expensive schools, are still not performing at the level of those other countries," Bernardo said.

He said the entire education system is so "underperforming" that even those studying in well-resourced centers are not performing at the same level as the best of the entire Asian region.

Bernardo hopes that the PISA results will spur education reforms.

"We need to stay focused on these bad results and go beyond just feeling bad about them. Because there is a lot in PISA that we can learn from," Bernardo said.

Edcom 2, now in its first year of operation, said it is looking forward to the completion of more than a hundred research projects from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, its research arm, and its partners De La Salle University, University of the Philippines and Ateneo de Manila University.

The panel expects the reforms to be in place in the next two years.

 

Education experts press DepEd reforms (msn.com)