THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers took Education officials to task for “evading responsibility for distance learning problems.”

The group said that the Department of Education should not pin the blame on others for the errors found in learning modules and the problems encountered during the opening of classes.

“It is very unfair and irresponsible of the DepEd central office to point its finger to its subordinates for the many problems in the first week of class opening, after it had so conveniently passed to the schools and teachers the duties for school opening preparations that were way beyond their capacities and resources. Kami na ang isinalang, kami pa nasisisi,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement.

Basilio hit DepEd’s report that 34 out of 35 reported module errors came from locally-developed modules that did not go through the central office’s quality-assurance team.

“Now, whose fault is that? It could have been avoided if the central office delivered on its duty to provide centralized learning materials, or at the minimum, ensured that all locally-developed modules were quality-assured by the central office before printing,” Basilio pointed out.

He lamented that instead of taking the responsibility and making things right, Deped “only told the division offices to exert effort in correcting the reported errors.”

“DepEd should be reminded that the module templates, including the instructions on the number of activities that it should contain, all came from them. Teachers are only implementing the agency plan,” he said

“We have earlier called for clear guidelines on the conduct of distance learning to address the too heavy workload and study load for teachers and students as observed in the simulations but the agency did not lift a finger to remedy this,” Basilio added.

He urged the Education department “to quit the blame game and to once and for all own up to its shortcomings and do its job for the sake of the millions of learners who now struggle with the problematic education continuity program.”