SENATOR Pia Cayetano has urged the Department of Education to find other ways to deliver learning materials to students.

“Since 2012, the only grade levels that had complete textbooks were Grades 5 and 6,” she said, adding that those in other grade levels either had incomplete or no textbooks at all.

Cayetano, who is also a commissioner of the Second Congressional Commission on Education, cited EDCOM 2 findings sourced from the DepEd Bureau of Learning Resources.

In its consultations with teachers, EDCOM 2 found that many schools still lack access to textbooks and other learning resources. Discussions with the Department of Education and an analysis of their reports on procurement show that this insufficiency is largely driven by the issues in the procurement of textbooks.

One major cause of delay is the previous practice of procuring manuscripts separately from printing and delivery services.

This is further exacerbated by the high cost of materials; suppliers’ failure to meet the deadline in printing and delivery; and the limited number of bidders or publishers who are participating in the bidding process.

“Obviously, we want to have a bigger textbook budget, but the textbook budget that you are referring to, which is P12 billion, is only meant to cover K, 1, 4, and 7 for 2024 implementation,” Cayetano noted. “Which means Grades 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 in the current curriculum, wala pa sila sa schedule ng implementation ng books – because this is a staggered implementation.”

Cayetano suggested digitizing textbooks as a solution.

“It is a sustainable model dahil number 1, hindi tayo gagastos ng papel, number 2 yung errors should be easier to change digitally, and the corrections and editing should be much faster,” she said.