Saturday, February 23, 2008 PJ Garcia seeks to improve performance of 'bottom 10' schools in 3rd district By NANCY R. CUDIS Sun.Star Staff Reporter
TO ENABLE children in the third district to do better in school, Cebu Rep. Pablo John Garcia said he will invest on “human infrastructure” through a teacher training program, especially in mathematics, science and English.
The first-term congressman said he will also monitor the performance of teachers through a baseline survey and progress reports on the teacher training program.
Well-performing teachers will get a chance to earn incentives in the form of scholarships, grants and study tours, among others.
When a “doable” program is in place, Garcia said he is willing to give P5 million from his pork barrel for its start-up and another P5 million “if we are getting somewhere by the middle of this year.”
Assisting financially will be the Department of Education’s (DepEd) allocation for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) per school. For this year, the third district was allocated P16.4 million for its elementary education and P11.9 million for its secondary education programs.
The MOOE covers office supplies, training and scholarships, utility costs, transportation, and repair and maintenance of buildings, among others.
These were among the measures proposed during a summit of education and local government officials yesterday. The summit was also devoted to the planning and creation of a technical working group for the program “Primero ang Tersero” (The third shall be first).
Arrest
“My priority is education. Without education, I would not have been here. Our program will only be successful if all stakeholders have a say in this. We need to arrest the decline of education standards in the third district. It would take us a day discussing the reasons. That’s why we have this summit for a day,” said Garcia.
This program resulted after Garcia learned that four elementary schools from Cebu Province were among the 10 lowest-performing schools in English in Central Visayas, based on the school year 2006-2007 National Achievement Test (NAT) for Grade 6.
These schools are also among the 1,898 elementary schools in the country that only achieved a mean percentage score (MPS) of 34 percent or below in English in the same test.
These schools are Loay Elementary School in Toledo City (27.86 percent mean percentage score or MPS); Tangub Elementary School (28.48 percent) and Anislag Elementary School (28.88 percent), both in Pinamungajan; and Lib-og Elementary School in Sogod (28.75 percent).
Output
Pinamungajan National Night High School is the only secondary school in Cebu to be included in the lowest 10 performing schools in English in Central Visayas, based on the 2006-2007 NAT for second year students.
Except for Loay Elementary School, the rest belong to the third congressional district where there are 102 recorded administrators and 1,312 teachers serving at least 139 schools.
Several factors surfaced as possible reasons for the low performance, such as teachers handling combination or multi-grade classes, the long process involved in fielding substitute teachers for those who wish to take a leave, and the lack of monitoring of schools.
“The MPS of the students didn’t reach 50 percent. We are investing 100 percent of the budget for them. We only get less than 50 percent output. All stakeholders in the community should know how their school is faring with other schools and how well the teachers are doing. Are we working with competent and committed teachers? We should then come up with a school improvement plan,” said DepEd 7 Assistant Director Recaredo Borgonia.
He also announced that DepEd is finalizing the concept of building a National Educators’ Academy in Central Visayas in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City.
Imperfect
He said Garcia’s program could serve as a model for other districts to improve their academic performance.
Cebu Province Schools Division Superintendent Serena Uy presented strategies they developed to turn around low performance in English, especially in the third district, such as review or remedial lessons for the least mastered skills and procurement of audiovisual learning materials to complement textbooks.
They will also strengthen the “Speak English” campaign of the division, the mentoring of English teachers who are non-majors, the enforcement of the “No-read, No-pass policy,” and the creation of an awards system for high achievers among schools, school heads and teachers based on test results.
Garcia said he considered the National Achievement Test as “a good indicator, but not a perfect indicator.”
Instead, he said he intends to work for an “in-house validation of the program.” With GMD
