Far from ‘matatag’: Delayed textbooks worsen learning crisis

MANILA, Philippines – The Matatag curriculum, or the Philippines’ revised basic education curriculum, was supposed to usher in a “more promising future” for students, according to Vice President Sara Duterte, who was the Department of Education (DepEd) secretary when she made the remark in 2023.

But halfway through the first phase of the Matatag curriculum’s implementation in school year (SY) 2024-2025, majority of textbooks have yet to be delivered.

Matatag — a Filipino word for “strong” — focuses on foundational skills, particularly language, literacy, mathematics, nationalism, and good manners and right conduct. For SY 2024-2025, the curriculum was rolled out for kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 4, and Grade 7.

In its Year Two Report released on January 27, the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) said only 35 out of 90 textbook titles have been fully delivered as of January 2025.

“Several challenges have been identified, including inadequate time for textbook development, high participation costs for publishers, and pricing issues related to paper quality and production timelines,” EDCOM 2 said.

The commission’s Year One Report, released back in January 2024, already discussed these challenges, as shown in the graphic below.

Graphic from EDCOM 2 report

EDCOM 2 added in its new report that technical reviews of textbooks often lead to bottlenecks in the process.

“Ang sabi namin sa DepEd, bakit tayo nagkakaroon ng bottlenecks sa review? Kumukuha ba tayo ng resource persons na puwedeng magtrabaho niyan full-time para ma-review nang mabilisan?… Kasi ang nangyayari ngayon, puro on top of their daily jobs, ginagawa ng ibang employees within DepEd ang pagre-review…. Every day that there is a delay in the review, it means a delay in the delivery sa students,” EDCOM 2 Executive Director Karol Yee said in a Rappler Talk interview on Tuesday, January 28.

(We asked the DepEd why there are bottlenecks in the review. Aren’t we getting resource persons who can work full-time to review textbooks quickly? Because what’s happening now is some DepEd employees are reviewing textbooks on top of their daily jobs. Every day that there is a delay in the review, it means a delay in the delivery to students.)

How can procurement be improved?

Even for other grade levels, there are “persistent” textbook shortages, affecting efforts to address the Philippines’ learning crisis.

EDCOM 2 previously found that only 27 textbook titles were procured for Grade 1 to Grade 10 students from 2012 to 2023. Only Grade 5 and Grade 6 students had complete sets of books, while “other grade levels have had to rely on learners’ manuals, self-learning modules, activity sheets, and teacher-made resources.”

In response to the long-standing problem, Education Secretary Sonny Angara — who succeeded Duterte — signed a memorandum in September 2024 that ordered Early Procurement Activities or EPA across the education department.

DepEd Memorandum No. 049 was aimed at ensuring that “contracts for goods, infrastructure projects, and consulting services are awarded ahead of the following fiscal year.” The purchase of textbooks was listed among the department’s priorities.

A study commissioned by EDCOM 2 and released in October 2024 gave these recommendations for textbook procurement, among others:

• Develop and formalize through legislation a policy covering “the evaluation, selection, acquisition, distribution, and use of textbooks for public schools”
• Amend the Book Publishing Industry Development Act or Republic Act No. 8047 to let the DepEd develop textbooks “under extraordinary circumstances”
• Monitor textbooks’ entire life cycles and gather feedback to ensure textbooks remain relevant

In its new report, EDCOM 2 also reiterated its previous recommendation to consider buying textbooks that are already out in the market, instead of having publishers create new ones.

You can access the full Year Two Report here. – Rappler.com

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