A good book communicates without judging your ability to understand it, and gives you a chance to read it again and again. A good book keeps you company, and continues to do so long after you have finished reading it, as its words and conjured images stay in your mind and heart. With a good book, you are not alone, and this is what a true friend makes you feel.
Especially for the coming Christmas holidays, the NBDB invites everybody to spend time with good books & true friends. There might be friends just waiting for you in your bookshelf. Or find and get to know them by visiting libraries and bookstores. Then proudly take them to your kith and kin.
The great ideal of the NBDB is to make the Philippines a reading nation and a publishing hub in Asia. Our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, wrote: "It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a grear ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice."
The NBDB urges you to hekp build our nation, stone by stone, board by board, link by link, into a living edifice of people who are rich in true friends, good books, and great works.
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Plus 2 Years of Quality Education?
The National Book Development Board can help the Department of Education in prescribing the guidelines in preparing the minimum learning competencies and other specifications for the public school textbooks to be used for the additional 2 years of the basic education cycle announced by Pres. Noynoy Aquino and Sec. Armin Luistro, FSC.
If one additional year would mean restoring Grade 7 to elementary education, then I personally propose that the DepEd with the NBDB begin by looking at the learning competencies targeted by reputable private schools that do have Grade 7.
I do hope that the effort that the DepEd will exert to formulate the curiculum and to mobilize the resources for the additional 2 years will be at least equally matched by the effort to ensure that "every child is a reader by Grade 3" and to raise the mean percentage score of the National Achievement Test (NAT) of prospective graduates of Grade 6 to at least 75%.
As of now, many public school children beyond Grade 3 still cannot read and understand a simple paragraph. The NAT mean percentage score, which was 55% when the NAT started in 2002, has improved through the years to 66.33% in 2009, but this is still below the minimum for what can qualify for "mastery" of the targeted learning competencies which is 75%.
Without ensuring the delivery of quality education especially in the current 6 years of elementary education, the additional 2 years would likely result in the lengthening and reinforcement of mediocrity which would mean a great deal of waste of public resources and taxes.
If one additional year would mean restoring Grade 7 to elementary education, then I personally propose that the DepEd with the NBDB begin by looking at the learning competencies targeted by reputable private schools that do have Grade 7.
I do hope that the effort that the DepEd will exert to formulate the curiculum and to mobilize the resources for the additional 2 years will be at least equally matched by the effort to ensure that "every child is a reader by Grade 3" and to raise the mean percentage score of the National Achievement Test (NAT) of prospective graduates of Grade 6 to at least 75%.
As of now, many public school children beyond Grade 3 still cannot read and understand a simple paragraph. The NAT mean percentage score, which was 55% when the NAT started in 2002, has improved through the years to 66.33% in 2009, but this is still below the minimum for what can qualify for "mastery" of the targeted learning competencies which is 75%.
Without ensuring the delivery of quality education especially in the current 6 years of elementary education, the additional 2 years would likely result in the lengthening and reinforcement of mediocrity which would mean a great deal of waste of public resources and taxes.
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