The Department of Education (DepEd) said that it is looking onto reports of so-called “academic dishonesty” during distance learning where parents allegedly pay tutors or other students to answer their children’s modules.

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Earlier, there were reports of two women from Albay and Bulacan who anonymously confessed to living off of such schemes, admitting that they have worked with parents, in which they would answer their children’s self-learning modules in exchange for money. 

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DepEd presented that 99 percent or more than 14.5 million students from Grades 1 to 12 acquired passing marks in a recent senate hearing. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the Senate Committee on Basic Education chair, raised his doubts on the numbers. 

“I don’t even know how to interpret that 99 percent passed, and almost no one failed even with the challenges of distance learning. Does this mean the students are absorbing and learning the lessons?” he said. 

Some students and their families use the “sagot for sale” scheme because of the difficulties in coping with the demands of blended learning.

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However, DepEd Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio said that allowing such fraud will not benefit students in the long run.

 

 

San Antonio told "Sa Totoo Lang" on One PH that these academic dishonesty reports were unfortunate and that the approach was unacceptable, stating that even parents should be discouraged from working on their children’s modules because it will not help them.