THE 2nd Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM 2 on Thursday confirmed the Department of Education has committed to deliver 80 percent of textbooks for Grades 1, 4, and 7 by July of this year.

The commitment was made during the meeting at the University of the Philippines-BGC.

“By July, we’ll have around 80 percent of textbooks for Grades 1, 4, 7,” said Director Ariz Cawilan of the DepEd Bureau of Learning Resources.

Representatives from the Department noted the award for successful bidders for textbooks will be issued by March 2024, and the Notice to Proceed issued by April.

Only then will the textbooks begin to print.

The Department claimed it had issued a Call for Textbooks last September – an earlier date than usual.

In its Year One Report entitled ‘Miseducation: The Failed System of Philippine Education’, EDCOM 2 flagged that for Grade 1 to Grade 10, only 27 textbooks have been procured since 2012.

“Specifically, since the introduction of the K to 12 curriculum, only Grades 5 and 6 textbooks have been successfully procured,” the report read.

The Commission also noted it has urged that DepEd confirm its strategy for ensuring timely textbook procurement for the upcoming school year in various fora, and that it has recommended DepEd to look into the possibility of procuring books that are already available in the market rather than engaging publishers to develop new ones.

“The previous timeline was about six months for printing and about six months for delivery. So now, they’re saying that in the revised timeline, between April, May, June, July, what used to be one year will now be four months,” EDCOM 2 Executive Director Dr. Karol Mark Yee clarified.

“You have three months between April and July to print eight million books…kaya ba ‘yun? Kasi, coming from the old system where printing takes almost a year plus,” Senator Sherwin Gatchalian echoed.