Cordillera Senior High School students lack classrooms, books

By Aldwin Quitasol

BAGUIO CITY — After the Department of Education Cordillera admitted number of classrooms for the Senior High School students is short of around 60%, teachers from the region also complained  incoming Grade 7 students will face the scarcity or absence of reliable and credible textbooks this coming school year 207-2018.

According to Thomas Millanes of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Cordillera in a press conference here at Teachers’ Camp, there are still no textbooks or materials for the subjects Technical Livelihood Education (TLE), English and Pilipino.  “The needed books are not yet complete and the opening of classes is nearing so what will they use then?,” he asked.

Millanes who prepares for necessary educational materials especially for the grade 7 students said one of problems they are facing is unreliable and inappropriate contents of some textbooks as they were not properly evaluated before being printed.

He cited the case in the textbook for the subject Araling Palipunan (AP) where he said,  Igorots of Mountain Province were portrayed erroneously as Aetas.

 “With all due respects to Aeta as our IP (indigenous peoples) brothers, they have their own identity as the Igorots have also their own,” he said.  Such mistakes in the books and in other educational materials are harmful for the students as they will grow uninformed of the things they should know.

“The problem here is that whenever we make instructional materials and pass it to the evaluators, it is like we are passing through the needle hole getting many comments and revisions but if the educational materials like textbooks coming from the national, they bring it directly to the schools even without passing through the evaluators and be reviewed also by the teachers here in the Cordillera who know more of the needed data and reliable information based from the actual situation of the region),” Millanes said.

He said when they are already in class, teachers as responsible as they have to go over the books of their pupils and they will manually put corrections on them.

“The government is spending a lot of money for the textbooks, the printing presses cannot be blamed for printing erroneous information, the problem is on the people who are prioritizing profit over the welfare of the students.” Millanes said.