“We need to improve the quality and skills of our teachers if we truly want to raise the standard of our educational system to world-class levels, or at least to be at par with our Asian neighbors.”
This was the statement of Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles during the Senate Committee hearing on the Teacher Education Council (TEC) last Thursday, December 10, 2020, in connection with Senate Bills No. 1887 and 1893.
“Education reform, which includes better equipping our teachers, is a top priority of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.”
Nograles was invited as one of the resource speakers.
Senate Bill No. 1887 is authored by Senator Win Gatchalian while Senate Bill 1893 is authored by Senator Bong Revilla. Both measures aim to amend Republic Act No. 7784 or “An Act to Strengthen Teacher Education in the Philippines by Establishing Centers of Excellence, Creating a Teacher Education Council for the Purpose, Appropriating Funds Therefor, and For other Purposes.”
The Malacañang official thanked the senator-members of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture and the Committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education for their efforts to institute much-needed reforms in teaching quality.
“Education reform, which includes better equipping our teachers, is a top priority of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte. This is included in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2020 and in our collective long-term vision — Ambisyon Natin 2040,” Nograles said.
Malacañang, through the Office of the Cabinet Secretary, has pushed for various education reforms. It called for a meeting with the DepEd, CHED, and the Research Center for Teacher Quality in July 2017 to discuss concrete means of improving education from a teacher quality perspective. This resulted in the creation of a Technical Working Group for Teacher Quality, an inter-agency body tasked to address the matter.
“When I was appointed Cabinet Secretary in 2018, we continued the dialogues with the TEC, DepEd, CHED, TESDA, COCOPEA, PNU-RCTQ, and other stakeholders. Last year, the President himself directed us to implement a national plan for quality basic education, one that ensured strategic links between pre-service and in-service teacher education,” said the former legislator.
“The enhanced Teacher Education Council will implement systemic, holistic and sustainable solutions, replacing the short-sighted and piecemeal solutions of the past.”
The measures pending at the Senate have undergone extensive review under the Technical Working Group of members of the Teacher Education Council. TEC was created through RA 7784 in 1994 to focus on reforms recommended by the Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM.
“We urgently seek to address the perceived decline in the quality of teaching based on national and international assessments. For example, a 2018 study ranked young Filipino students at the bottom when it came to reading, Mathematics and Science. We need to level up both our teachers’ and students’ training to better prepare them for the challenges of the future.”
Nograles emphasized that the proposed amendments at the Senate will provide a more solid framework for improvements moving forward.
“The enhanced Teacher Education Council will implement systemic, holistic and sustainable solutions, replacing the short-sighted and piecemeal solutions of the past. This is the most effective way we can realize comprehensive changes to the way we teach,” the official explained.