The Department of Education (DepEd) may have overlooked textbooks as a crucial resource requirement in the education sector as it still needs to acquire more than 100-million textbooks to meet the Arroyo administration’s target, according to the think tank of the House of Representatives.

The Congressional Planning and Budget Department (CPBD) said the serious backlog of textbooks in public elementary and high schools is among the “resource gaps” that DepEd needs to prioritize in order to meet its target under the six-year Medium-Term Philippine Investment Plan (MTPIP).

It lamented that as of 2008, the DepEd managed to purchase only a total of 46,809,088 textbooks, which is way behind its MTPIP target of 147,235,687 textbooks from 2004 to 2010.

The CPBD said this means that the education department needs to acquire some 100,426,599 textbooks until 2010 in order to meet its goal.

“The Department (DepEd) needs to substantially accelerate its textbook program to cover its backlog of more than 100-million textbooks,” the CPBD said in its September 2009 report.

Based on its accomplishment report submitted to the CPBD, the DepEd reported that only 1,223,628 textbooks were purchased in 2005, when the MTPIP goal for that year was 25,541,803.

In 2006, the DepEd procured 11,632,107 as against the MTPIP target of 26,055,946 textbooks. The agency, in 2007, bought 11,201,353 when the target for that year was 18,733,112.

It also reported that the total target for the years 2008 to 2010 was 76,904,826 but the DepEd only purchased 22,752,000 as of last year.

Aside from textbooks, the CPBD said shortages remain in the provision of classrooms, school furniture and teachers.

“The quality of education unarguably needs urgent attention, resource gaps need to be addressed first. Despite moneys plowed into the sector, shortages remain in the provision of classrooms, textbooks, school furniture and teachers,” the House think tank said.

It also lamented the lack of qualification and experience of a number of teachers, which impacts on the quality of education in the public school system.

There is also a shortage of specialized teachers willing to teach priority subjects such as sciences and math, particularly physics and chemistry, the CPBD said.

It also noted that the dropout rates for public elementary pupils remained high at 5.99 percent from 2007 to 2008 despite the Medium-Term Development Plan target at 5.52 percent. It pointed to poverty as the main culprit for the dropout rate.