Error-riddled books to flood RP schools this year - report

When school opens this year, nearly a million error-riddled textbooks will yet again be supplied to public schools nationwide, an article posted on the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism website said. The article quoted Antonio Go, the educator who blew the whistle on errors found in a History textbook two years ago. He attended the Jan 24 senate hearing on the “textbook scam." Go, the academic supervisor of the Marian School of Quezon City, said the newly approved public school textbook on Social Studies, Ang Bagong Pilipino, has “more than 100 errors." “Why had this been allowed to happen?" said Go, who has been reviewing “defective textbooks" for 10 years now. “This is the biggest error, teaching children things that are wrong." Department of Education (DepEd) officials who attended the inquiry said they will look into the errors. One of the factual errors pointed out by Go was the complete name of the weather bureau Pagasa spelled as Philippine Atmospheric, Geographical and Astronomical Administration. Pagasa stands for Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration. Another error is the word “sangko," defined in the book as the term for the third eldest female sibling, when it should be male. The book also calls the body of water “look" (bay) as “gulf," a totally different body of water, and which is called “gulpo" in Filipino. Even the maps are erroneous, Go said, as the National Capital Region is positioned in the middle of Laguna Bay and the province of Batangas is halved in two. The book, intended for Grade 3 pupils, was written by Expectacion Castor Gonzales and published by a Korean firm, Daewoo International Supply Corp. This set of books is part of 12 million textbooks for Grades 1 to 5 funded by the World Bank. The World Bank-funded project has been the subject of controversy following a case against one of the publishers for possible conflict of interest. The books have been kept in warehouses since last year following a lower court decision stopping the delivery to the district offices of the Department of Education (DepEd). The books were supplied by Daewoo, Vibal Pubishing House, and a Thai company, Watana Phanit Printing & Publishing. Go further revealed that 50 percent of all public school textbooks on English, Filipino, and Social Studies are “defective" or full of errors. He said these were his findings after studying all grade school level textbooks. DepEd, Go explained, had given him a complete list of approved textbooks currently being used in all public schools. He said he has yet to review elementary-level Science and Math textbooks. "These (books) are for gradeschool students, purportedly written by Phds," said Harry Roque, counsel of one of the losing bidders, during the Senate hearing. "Why do these mistakes occur despite the evaluation process allegedly implemented by DepEd?" Roque added, "The fact that these errors are still so prevalent already indicates that there is now a need to revisit the evaluation process." Roque also said that DepEd should make the evaluation process more transparent to prevent further errors like those found by Go. "The existing process of evaluation is so secretive, it breeds graft and corruption." Go has said that he is willing to work with the education department to correct the errors. "These errors have be corrected to minimize the damage," he said. Go said the new editions of the controversial book Asya: Noon, Ngayon at sa Hinaharap still contains some of the errors he discovered and exposed in 2004. Publisher Vibal in 2005 issued a supplemental handbook – more than one million copies free of charge — to replace Asya, even as it published an open letter in 2004 describing Go’s allegations as "nothing more than a perverted and vicious assault upon the honor and integrity of the authors." Go has incurred two libel suits from two authors of Asya and two more from Phoenix Publishing in 2005, following another exposè on two of the firm’s 12 books. For more details, go to http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=1423 - GMANews.TV