Villanueva: DepEd, CHR must coordinate with PRC for common teaching standards

The Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education should collaborate with the Professional Regulation Commission to come up with “common standards” in teacher education and training, according to Senator Joel Villanueva.

At the Senate joint committee hearing on the proposed Teacher Education Council Act on Wednesday, the senator cited the obvious overlaps in the functions of DepEd, CHEd and PRC when it came to the educating and training teachers.

“Our goal here is to put an end to turfing because we’ve seen how this has hindered our agencies from improving the quality of teachers,” he said.

“Everyone wants to be in charge, but no one wants to be accountable,” said Villanueva, chair of the Senate committee on higher, technical and vocational education.

“Collaboration continues to be a challenge for our education institutions that every year we would pound on the issue of coordination and yet, there is a question on when and where they last actually met for discussions,” he said.

“We are aware that for as long as we don’t fully address the coordination issues in our trifocalized education, all the reforms in education will hinder the benefits which we all desire to attain,” Villanueva added.

At present, the common standard for teacher education is the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST), but teachers have to go through different agencies which follow different standards for their professional development.

Furthermore, CHEd and PRC are not involved in the development of the PPST which was designed by the Teachers Education Council, DepEd, and Philippine Normal University (PNU).

“Year after year, we have seen how the lack of coordination has held back our education sector from successfully producing quality educators,” Villanueva said.

“This is evident in the lackluster performance of examinees in the LET for the past 10 years,” he said.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)