Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sonny Angara on Tuesday said they are looking at an “innovation” to hasten the procurement of textbooks for basic education learners.
During the Senate deliberation of DepEd’s proposed 2025 budget, Angara told senators that they were eyeing title pre-selection as a system they want to duplicate from private schools or law schools.
Under the system, students are given the titles they can buy from bookstores.
“I think it will make things easier — to select from the available titles in the market, and it will also help perhaps our local publishers and the local publishing industry as well if we tell them in advance that we will be purchasing from your titles rather than having that cumbersome process of developing your own manuscript, among others,” Angara explained.
The DepEd chief said they were still planning to consult the Government Procurement Policy Board as to the legality of the process.
“We have to get an opinion from the DBM, the Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB), as to whether we could pre-select legally the titles and then bid them out. Kumbaga, alam na natin na yun ang bibilhin, yung title na yun (It’s like, we already know what to procure, what title),” Angara said, noting that this is the first time that DepEd will implement the system.
In the current system, he said DepEd needs to conduct early procurement activities to deliver books to the learners on time, considering that the agency has to develop and print its own books.
But he admitted that in reality, they would still be in the delivery process until the end of the year.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian supported the idea, recalling that it was one of the recent recommendations made by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II).
“That was one of our recommendations, one of the ideas that was floated that in private schools, even in basic education they give you a list and you go to a book store and you buy your books. So, the private schools they don’t print their own books or make their own books,” Gatchalian said.
“So, I think that’s a very good out-of-the-box solution and I’m very happy to hear that we’re finally moving into that very practical solution, actually,” he added.
Senator Pia Cayetano, who presided over the deliberation, also agreed to the idea noting that records would show private school learners, who use the title pre-selection system, are doing better than the public school learners “quite consistently.”
“So, why would DepEd historically want to create their own books when the books seem to be good enough for the students in the private schools that seem to be doing well?” Cayetano raised.
During a recent dialogue with the publishers, however, Angara said that they found out private schools have a budget of at least PHP600 per book, whereas DepEd’s budget is about PHP120 per book.
But with economies of scale, Cayetano said the PHP600 budget could definitely go down to PHP120 with the volume that DepEd would procure for around 25 million public basic education learners in the country.
The DepEd is proposing to spend PHP793.2 billion next year, which is 2.8 percent higher than the PHP762.1 billion approved budget for this year. (PNA)
