Improving Education and Curbing Corruption by Monitoring Textbook Deliveries in the Philippines

In 2001 there were a plethora of reports, disclosing that billions of pesos were lost in textbook scams, corruption in procurement, ghost projects in textbook delivery and school-building construction. In that year, G-Watch reviewed public sector performance in two key areas: textbook delivery and school-building construction. 

G-Watch findings on textbook delivery included:

  • 40% of textbooks cannot be accounted for
  • Suppliers deliver books seemingly randomly, anytime anywhere
  • Recipients were not notified about deliveries
  • No feedback mechanism regarding schools’ receipt of books
  • Documents were not properly filled and filed
  • No effective sanctions for late deliveries
  • 21% of difficult-to-reach elementary schools did not receive any shipments.

In addition, the prices of textbooks procured by the Department of Education (DepEd) were unreasonably high and the physical quality of the textbooks was poor with the apparent use of substandard
materials in their production.

View this case study.