By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Both in the content and the response it elicited from the Department of Education (DepEd), the I-Witness documentary “Pag-asa sa Pagbasa” aired by the GMA7 on September 1, 2018 clearly showed that the agency has no intent of addressing the reading crisis. The documentary is about the roomful of Grade 7 students with serious reading difficulties including some who could not read at all at the Sauyo High School in Novaliches, Quezon City last school year and how their teachers were coping with the daunting task of belatedly teaching them how to read.
Giving the DepEd side, Rosalina Villaneza, director for Learning and Teaching Division, defended the policy of the department of making the passing or retention of pupils as one of the basis for rating the performance of teachers. She reasoned that somehow, the failure of students reflect on the performance of the teacher because he has been trained for the job and it is impossible that if he had done what he should be doing in the ten months, the students would not still know how to read. It was implied in the documentary that the policy is one of the factors for the non-reader problem.
Villaneza’s statement was an unwitting admission of the utter irresponsibility of the DepEd officials with regards to the reading issue. If the DepEd holds teachers – Villaneza may have meant Grades 1-3 teachers because in the K-12, the child is given three years to acquire the skill of reading – primarily responsible for the failure of pupils to learn to read, how come the agency is not seeing to it that the teachers meet the obligation? Why has the department not set a fool-proof system to determine if all Grade 3 pupils could read at the end of the school year? Was Villaneza saying DepEd lays down policies including those on crucial matters such as assuring that children could learn to read and then rely on chance or the heavens to effect them?
Villaneza was announcing that despite DepEd’s policy that teachers cannot be remiss in teaching reading to school children, the agency still lets non-readers and frustration level readers to graduate from the elementary schools in droves under its very nose.
Just to highlight the fact that practically, there are no more working controls when it comes to ensuring that public school children learn how to read, the National Capital Region (NCR) DepEd office has a “No Read, No Pass” policy. Regional Memorandum No. 067, series of 2014, states that teachers who pass a Grade 2 pupil who could not read in Filipino and a Grade 3 who could not read in both Filipino and English “will be dealt with accordingly.” The students featured in the documentary were in Grade 2 when the policy was issued and had the DepEd-NCR been serious about it, they would have been stuck in Grade 3 indefinitely until they could read but on the contrary, they coasted through the remaining elementary grades and reached Grade 7.
And yes, eight months after the airing of the embarrassing and damaging documentary, there is no noticeable action on the part of DepEd to address the reading crisis. In fact, the DepEd has yet to acknowledge the disturbing reality of non-readers in intermediate and secondary grades. Not a single public pronouncement from its officials and no issuance or information on the phenomenon in the agency’s website. The only document posted in the DepEd website after the GMA documentary which refers to non-readers is DepEd Memorandum 175, series of 2018, regarding the celebration of the National Reading Month last year. One of the suggested activities listed in the enclosure was as follows: “Help a reader. Be a Volunteer. Schools and learning centers shall invite parents and other community volunteers to help non-readers and other learners with reading difficulties by adopting a child to help him succeed in reading.” It is copy pasted from DepEd Memorandum 145, series of 2015, though.
The DepEd’s dismissive reaction to the expose clearly reveals its absence of intent to address the problem which indicates lack of concern for the welfare of school children. This does not come as a surprise because how would we have come to this point where some elementary school graduates do not know the contents of their diploma if DepEd officials harbour a modicum of care for our children in the first place?**
