Can DepEd Deliver Anything on Time?

by Joy Rizal

It seems the ONLY things that DepEd has the ability to keep and insure will happen on time, according to schedule, are breaks and holidays.

According to the official DepEd Schedule (DO_s2014_18), last Thursday and Friday, October 16-17, 2014 were supposed to be the dates that second quarter exams would be given,with the week of October 20-24 as mid term assessment and INSET as well as a semester break for students. Report cards are to be given at a parent teacher conference on Saturday Oct 25, 2014. 


P-NOY GOT FAILING MARK FROM TEACHERS

"The teachers made their assessment of the Aquino administration’s performance through a “Progress Report Card” using the K-12 grading system in several ‘key result areas’ or actions that were expected from the administration which include the increase in the salaries and benefits of teachers, sufficient education budget, fund allocation for K-12 program and patriotic education. The president got a failing grade B (for beginning), in all of those aspects and was advised to provide the needs of the education sector in his remaining years in office."

That all sounds well and good, EXCEPT for the fact DepEd living up to its standard level of incompetence, has not seen a need to bother creating, or at least not seen a need to bother distributing, the exams for the schools to use.   Not even a single copy of the exams for the schools (at least not for the elementary schools in our area) to replicate.  

This of course would make distributing (honest) report cards at the parent teacher conference (which will most likely be canceled) impossible.

It is no wonder we STILL do not have the promised textbooks for all our children. The Philippine Department of Education cannot even distribute a set of Exams that consists of less than 50 pages per grade level before the required dates.  It seems the ONLY things that DepEd has the ability to keep and insure will happen on time, according to schedule, are breaks and holidays.

I have always believed that the best way to teach is by example.  Sadly the example that DepEd and oversight committees are teaching our children is that work schedules, deadlines, ethics and promises mean nothing. They teach that incompetence and excuses are ok for people that are in charge and that leaders seem to rarely be held accountable for even the most grievous atrocities.   At the same time, our children are condemned by not receiving a decent education and are held accountable both with poor grades (it is difficult to study when there is no material to study) as well as later in life by only being able to get low level manual “grunt” jobs.

Our country is held accountable by the fact that DepEd and our elected officials (who are supposed to at least pretend to be trying to better our country) are condemning generation after generation of children that do not even have the basic skills needed to compete in today’s world.   These officials have also been teaching our children for their entire school life that corruption is to be accepted and that people in the working world do not need to worry about doing a good quality job with anything.

Look around at how many times a year does the same sections of road need to be repaired rather than fixing it correctly the first time?  How often have you seen anyone install much of anything correctly the first time?  How many people have you seen who actually try to be accountable, take responsibility and are proud of the honest work they do?  (Sadly, I know a lot of people that take far more pride with their dishonest actions.)

If anyone wonders why the Philippines is in the mess it is in, one can start by looking at DepEd, which for YEARS has been downgrading the education quality even though its budget has been steadily increasing while getting away with the lamest of excuses for the continually increasing shortcomings.

DepEd can go for YEARS not delivering learning material, having very questionable invoices, ordering useless items (for instance two bulb solar lighting kits), and when asked by Senate officials how they spent over 300 Billion pesos actually get away with saying “they do not know” (with no serious repercussions).

The things DepEd is teaching our children by their living examples explains a LOT about why our country has among the lowest ratings in all areas of any country on the planet.  Simply put the results we are seeing in our nation is exactly what the Philippine Department of Education is teaching our children, through their actions and inactions.

Are these really the kind of people we want to be responsible for our children’s education and the foundation of their future?

It is time to stand up and say enough is enough.  It is time to start insisting that everyone in DepEd From the lowest to the highest-level do their job honestly and correctly, without excuses, or get out!  

DepEd, we are getting nothing from you now; if you are gone, we can at least start using your salaries to make photocopies of learning material for our children....




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