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All the “success stories” mentioned by DepEd refer to similar
reform efforts that merely aim to use ICT to augment existing
educational processes. The CERNET Project of Tsinghua
University is designed to make available curricular inputs to adult
learners and higher education students who would not ordinarily have
access to such materials. The EDUSAT of India, the
Telesecundaria of Mexico, the Wang Klai Kang Won of Thailand are
similar in that what they do is plug another hole in the existing
educational process: the problem of access. To a large extent,
Text2Teach, Knowledge Channel, and other Philippine projects using
ICT in education also plug similar holes in access to good quality
curricular content. All such projects seem to work in so far
as providing the information to learners, and improving student
learning of such information, and also improving student motivation
for the type of learning supported by the projects.
But using ICT in such reform efforts has its
risks. We have to remember that the effectiveness of any
educational technology is largely determined by the manner in which
it used in specific contexts. Quoting from the The ICT Impact
Report: A Review of Studies of ICT Impact on Schools in Europe
(December 2006):
“The impact of ICT is highly dependent on how
it is used. The impact of a specific ICT application or device
depends on the capacity of the teacher to exploit it efficiently for
pedagogical purposes. Factors beyond the teacher’s control
influence ICT uptake, e.g. institutional cultures, leadership, the
curriculum and assessment.” (p. 4)
Thus often the planned benefits of a
technological tool are vastly different from the results of how it
is actually used in context.
What research says on the use of ICT in
education?
Research on ICT in education has documented that
ICT has had the lowest effect on teachers and teaching pedagogies.
In fact, the introduction of ICT in robust educational systems
indicate that there is a tendency to use the technology in ways that
merely reinforce existing instructional and learning practices in
the classroom. This risk is particularly high in educational
communities where the teachers and school administrators do not have
high efficacy with the technology. Instead of using ICT to
explore ways to transform the learning experiences of students,
teachers and school administrators are likely to appropriate ICT as
another tool to support the status quo. Research on the use of
ICT in education has identified the teachers as perhaps the most
critical factor in the equation. Findings also indicate that
teachers tend to resist the technology or quite often they merely
use the technology in the most rudimentary functions. Teachers
often feel uncomfortable in using the technology; they have no
mastery over the technology and thus end up resisting it or using it
for marginal purposes.
In the Cyber-Ed proposal, teachers are supposed
to focus on adapting the lectures for local context and to specific
classroom needs. They are supposed to be provided access to
technology-based resources for that purpose. These functions are new
to most teachers, and will require that they actual have a fairly
high level of mastery of the technology to effectively utilize the
resources that are made available to them. DepEd says that the
teachers will be liberated from many of the basic functions of
teaching, and given time to prepare for these new functions.
The Cyber-Ed project should invest a truly hefty sum in training
teachers in the use of this technology to improve students learning.
Using technology does not solve our problem of
poor teacher knowledge of the subject content. Research in
other countries indicates that even if teachers are trained with the
technology, the technology becomes useless if the teacher’s
content knowledge is inadequate. Therefore, using
prefabricated lectures does not relieve us from the need to improve
teachers’ content knowledge in the various learning areas.
Thus this is another reform that needs continuous investment on the
part of DepEd.
How will DepEd prepare teachers for CyberEd?
I will not comment too much on how DepEd plans
to prepare teachers for CyberEd as the presentation does not have
enough details on how they plan to do this. But in 2000, we
reviewed the various in-service training programs done in public
schools and found them to be grossly inadequate and ineffective.
Our education researchers have noted how ineffectual DepEd has been
in achieving large-scale teacher development in the system.
The best way to describe the impact of most in-service training
programs so far is that they do not really change teachers practices
in the classroom, but they change the way teachers talk about these
practices. I was involved in recent DepEd efforts to define
policy thrusts to improve teaching in the BESRA, which included
proposals for transforming the in-service teacher development
framework of DepEd. The proposals articulated in the Teacher
Education and Development Plan (TEDP) are very comprehensive and are
based on the best practices of various groups involved in teacher
development. It is important that the DepEd aligns the
Cyber-Ed Project with the TEDP if it wants to ensure that teachers
will be prepared to implement the CyberEd properly.
CyberEd will reinforce existing weaknesses in
the system
The other big risk of technology-based
educational reform efforts such as the CyberEd is that it would
merely reinforce the other existing weaknesses in the system.
The argument is that as technology is merely being appropriated as a
new tool in what is already a robust, but ineffective set of
educational processes, technology would end up highlighting the
other weaknesses in the educational system. I have discussed the
teacher factor, another is the curriculum. Curriculum scholars
have noted that the Philippine basic education curriculum is a
highly congested curriculum that tends to emphasize lower level
cognitive learning objectives. In CyberEd, the teachers are
supposed to spend more time in class engaging students in
collaborative activities that would allow them to process the
lectures broadcast in CyberEd. Such a plan seems to have so
far ignored the overcrowded curriculum. Making teachers follow the
Cyber-Ed plan will only make this curriculum problem more obvious,
unless the DepEd does something about effectively rationalizing the
curriculum. And introducing CyberEd in some schools will make
some of the fundamental problems such as lack of classrooms, desks
and chairs, electricity and other basic physical requirements even
more obvious.
The Cyber-Ed program as described seems to be
designed in a way that ICT will be used to support existing
educational processes; it does not aim to transform these
educational processes; designing CyberEd in this way will most
likely lead to measurable gains, but it is not likely to
revolutionize Philippine education. This conservative reform
effort that involves a relatively high-end technology has some
built-in risks that involve highlighting the very same problems that
plague the current system.
Is CyberEd the best policy option for education
reform?
Is the Cyber-Ed Project the best policy option
for attaining measurable gains in student learning? Are there
other reform options, perhaps less costly or less risky, that could
lead to the measurable gains of similar magnitude? Given the
wide range of pilot reform projects the DepEd has implemented in
recent years, are there other candidates for reform initiatives to
be scaled up? I keep thinking of the success story of Eastern
Visayas, which has some of the poorest and under funded provinces in
the country, but whose students have consistently scored highest in
the DepEd assessment in recent years. The students’ learning
scores have shown consistent measurable improvements over the past
years? Clearly the administrators, school heads, and teachers
of Eastern Visayas are doing something very well? Does it
involve something as costly and as risky as CyberEd? Why not
scale up what Eastern Visayas is doing?
The successes measured in the Third Elementary
Education Project (TEEP) and Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao
(BEAM) projects, which were implemented in some of the poorest
provinces in the country are also worth noting. The TEEP is
particularly interesting as it did not involve large amounts of new
investments, but involved transforming the governance practices in
schools. The TEEP has lead to clear measurable learning
improvements that effectively erased the gaps between the poorest
provinces and their richer counterparts. Why not invest on
scaling up what the TEEP has implemented?
The decision to scale up a particular reform
initiative is obviously in the hands of our education officials. And
I applaud the political will of the current DepEd administration to
push for a project in the scale of CyberEd. We really should
give credit for the resolve and political will, which is truly
needed for us to achieve any significant transformations in
Philippine education. Only if reform is done in an intensive
and extensive scale can we really expect significant improvements to
happen. So I think we should really be happy that the DepEd is
venturing into a reform effort of this scale.
Does DepEd have the capacity to oversee a reform
of this scale?
But at the same time, I cannot help but be
worried about the DepEd’s capacity to oversee a reform of this
scale. These recent years have seen very well meaning reforms
of the DepEd that never really saw fruit because these were never
fully implemented. The Restructured Basic Education Curriculum
(RBEC) was a very good reform initiative that has not yet fully been
realized at the ground, five years after its implementation.
The Bilingual Education Policy is now 33 years old and it is still
not being implemented properly. Observations on DepEd’s
track record in implementing large-scale projects and technology
related projects worry about whether it has the capacity to oversee
something in the scale of CyberEd.
I am very excited by the fact that the DepEd is
finally getting involved in a reform effort of this scale, as what
Philippine education needs is an intervention that is intensive as
it is extensive. But I do have concerns about DepEd’s
capacity to oversee reform in this scale, and I am not sure that the
CyberEd as it is presently designed is the best option for such a
large-scale reform effort. I suspect that other reform efforts
that involve transforming school governance, transforming teaching
and teacher development, transforming the curriculum, and
transforming the nature of the teaching-learning processes in the
classroom involve less risk and less cost, and have a better
likelihood of producing larger measurable improvements in student
learning in the long run.
DepEd has so much homework to do on CyberEd
If the DepEd will push through with CyberEd, it
has so much homework to do. It needs to sustain and augment
efforts to address other existing problems related to the
curriculum, teacher preparation and working conditions, assessment
of students learning, and the provision of other basic educational
inputs. I hope it does an honest to goodness job of learning
from the results of similar ICT based programs in other countries,
instead of selectively citing results that fit its agenda.
I also hope that someday the infrastructure we
will be investing on will be used for some truly more innovative
educational reforms. I understand that the DepEd has to sell
this idea to its constituency and convince the Filipino people that
it is a good plan. However, for the sake of the Filipino
people, I hope that they are also truly taking stock of the risks
and problems involved in such an endeavor and doing something
substantial to minimize these risks and address these problems.
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