PASIG CITY, February 20, 2020 – The Department of Education (DepEd) is pushing for improved collaborative efforts within the Philippines’ trifocal education system.

Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones on Friday advocated to have more active dialogues with officials of Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to identify issues and streamline programs related to improving the state of Philippine education.

“We should take the PISA agenda in greater detail and meet more often to have serious discussions on the challenges [of Philippine education],” Secretary Briones said as one of the panelists in the Development Academy of the Philippines’ (DAP) Dekalogo public lecture series of Senator Sherwin Gatchalian.

The trifocal education system mandates DepEd in basic education which covers elementary, secondary and non-formal education while CHED being responsible for higher education and TESDA administering post-secondary, middle-level manpower training and development.

Briones identified that one of the educational gaps was on the curriculum of teachers. She highlighted that DepEd must know how universities and colleges train education majors.

“We should strengthen the link between the pre-service and the in-service of the teachers,” she noted, citing the educational system of Singapore as an example, where the Ministry of Education was the sole institution implementing teacher training curriculum in pre-service and in-service.

This was the same issue observed by Sen. Gatchalian, as he pointed out the disconnect of CHED ‘producing’ the teachers and DepEd being the ‘end-users’.

“Right now, there is no physical connection between the producer and the end-user. The coordination is quite hazy and not so clear. The end user must have a large say on this,” Sen. Gatchalian said.

Briones shares that DepEd is making efforts for continuous upskilling and reskilling of teachers under its watch through the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP).

“Once teachers come in, we are responsible for their continuous training and education,” she said.

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