Public school learners should have complete sets of textbooks for all subjects, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said.
Gatchalian made the comment following the Second Congressional Commission on Education’s (EDCOM II) year one report that only students from Grade 5 to 6 have complete sets of textbooks.
The EDCOM also revealed low utilization of the budget for textbooks and other instructional materials, noting that only P4.47 billion out of more than P12.6 billion was obligated and P961.9 million was disbursed from 2018 to 2022.
Issues hounding textbook procurement, the senator said, included insufficient development time, high costs, slow review process, and pricing.
“While textbook procurement should only take 180 days, the process takes an average of three years,” according to him.
“We must solve the process. I’m very optimistic, I can lobby to allocate P28 billion a year to procure textbooks but even though we allocate P28 billion a year, if it will take you three years to spend it, sayang lang,” the chairman of Senate basic education panel said.
“My suggestion is to liberalize the procurement of textbooks so that we will not be burdened by logistics and the bidding process because that takes time, and this is connected to learner performance.”IMT
Photo by Arnold Almacen/CMO
