THE call to shut down low-performing teacher education institutions (TEIs) floated anew as the Senate Committee on Basic Education probed the recent outcome of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) on Wednesday.
However, Committee on Basic Education chairperson Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said that he is not after the shutting down of low-performing TEIs but the need to extract “accountability” in teacher education.
“[These] TEIs will just go through their usual business and they get subsidy through higher education, and then the student will have to pay their extra expenses…there’s no point, eh! I can see that it filters to our education system,” Gatchalian said, noting that teachers are the most important resource in a student’s education.
“My point there, it’s affecting [the performance of students] . because it starts with the TEIs; hopefully we produce highly qualified teachers. Eventually they will end up in our public schools and eventually PISA results will demonstrate that quality,” the senator added.
Senator Nancy Binay also expressed dismay and suggested that there should be a policy for TEIs with zero passing rate, similar to schools offering a nursing program.
Gatchalian echoed this by saying, “But what we want to see is the accountability in teacher education because it starts with pre-service. But if we are seeing that our TEIs are not up to par, not compliant with minimum standards… or else it’s a waste of resource.
He recalled that the Commission of Higher Education (Ched) had flagged the same problem “three or four years ago.”
Karol Mark Yee, executive director of EdCom II, disclosed during the hearing that there are over 70 TEIs offering a Bachelor of Elementary Education and 120 plus offering Bachelor of Secondary Education, but with “zero passing rate but are still in operation” in the past 10 years.
An alarmed Gatchalian blurted out, “this is not only a waste of resources but they are also not passing and also they end up in our system.” He called it a “double whammy.” Following the PISA result last year, Ched said it is willing to help the Department of Education.
“More importantly, we want to realize the national education vision laid out in the Philippine Development Plan (2023-2028) in order to ensure that all Filipinos are able to realize their full potential to keep pace with the envisioned socioeconomic transformation,” CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera III said in a statement.
De Vera said among the help they would extend to the DepEd is to engage colleges and universities whose teacher programs are centers of excellence or development, in order to study details of country reports to provide solutions for the DepEd.