DOJ’s help sought over module errors falsely attributed to DepEd —Briones

The Department of Education (DepEd) said Friday it had asked for assistance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on how to deal with persons who falsely attributed mistakes in self-learning modules to the DepEd.

Education Secretary Leonor Briones said they turned to the DOJ for help as they found out that not all errors were made by the DepEd.

“We will listen to the advice of the Department of Justice on the findings related to materials which are attributed to us like iyong malisyoso na material or whatever,” the Cabinet official said at the Laging Handa briefing.

“Tini-trace namin, the person does not exist and so on and so forth. So that is already outside the regulatory mandate of the Department of Education and we have sought the advice of the Secretary of Justice on this matter,” she added.

Only a tiny fraction of the 800,000 pages of DepEd-produced modules that were reviewed by the department contained errors, said DepEd Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio.

“Kapag mayroong mga nakikitang mali talaga ay nag-i-issue tayo ng errata o erratum at iyon pong mga seryosong pagkakamali ay ongoing po iyong pag-iimbestiga at pag-aalam kung bakit nangyari iyon,” he said.

“May mga proseso naman po ang Kagawaran para mabigyan ng sanction if ever kung mapatunayan na iyon pong pagkakamali ay deliberate o talagang ginawa niya iyon para maging mali o mai-promote kung ano man iyong kaniyang sariling paniniwala,” he added.

San Antonio said the department also planned on tapping "third party evaluators” to reduce errors in self-learning modules.

Over 25 million students in the country are currently learning through home-based delivery of lessons and most of them are dependent on self-learning modules due to limited access to the internet.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Philippines to shift to distance learning this academic year, which includes the use of modules and supplemented by broadcast and online classes.—AOL, GMA News