THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers decried the Department of Education central office for its apparent refusal to take accountability and blaming teachers and its local office on the issue of problematic high school module putting Vice President and presidential aspirant Leni Robredo in a bad light.

The issue is one of the problems found in many locally-produced DepEd learning modules following the implementation of distance learning in 2020.

The group pointed out the root cause of the problem is the DepEd central office’s failure to produce and provide the standard modules needed in all subjects and grade levels in a timely manner, and then passing the very important responsibility to its local offices, thereby opening up a gargantuan space for the proliferation of erroneous materials.

“At fault again is the DepEd central office for its lack of a stringent vetting process given the localization of module production. This also puts into question the efficiency of the DepEd’s so-called quality assurance process which it claimed to have been improved since January 2021 in light of the many errors in learning modules that have been publicly exposed,” the group said in a statement.

“Our teachers, while it is beyond their job description and formal training to write and edit learning materials, were burdened with this task without any due compensation, and worse, used as the department’s scapegoat whenever problems on module quality came up,” it added.

The ACT maintained learning materials play a crucial role in delivering quality education and in fulfilling the education’s goal of promoting truth, critical thinking, and patriotism, and against illiteracy, unscientific thinking, and all forms of discrimination.

“This duty, in the final analysis, foremost lies on the top leadership of the Department of Education. It is only reasonable to demand from them to take full responsibility and accountability on the issue of learning module production and all other concerns related to it,” the group said.