The Department of Education Regional Office III conducted a regional virtual orientation on the promotion of academic honesty on October 1, 2021.
This activity is in support of the Memorandum DM-OUCI-2021-395 from the Office of Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio which reiterates DepEd’s stand on maintaining academic honesty while upholding every learner’s integrity.
“As self-directed learning materials, the self-learning modules (SLMs) are given to learners to allow them to manage their learning through the different formative assessments. Although these are not graded and are used to monitor learning progress and prepare learners for summative assessments, cheating on the answers to the SLMs has become prevalent online,” Undersecretary San Antonio said.
Further, the Memorandum states that “while the SLMs have key to correction, as an inherent feature of self-instructional materials, it is not intended to be used to cheat and bypass authentic learning. Regardless of the design of the SLMs and the extent of freedom in the online space, cheating cannot be justified under any circumstance.”
The said orientation aims to not merely raise the level of awareness of Schools Division Offices on the observance of honesty in the academic performance of the learners but also to conceptualize strategies and intervention initiatives for the effective implementation of the advocacy. The Schools Division Offices are tasked to conduct similar orientations for parents, learners, and teachers.
Advocacy and informational videos will also be produced by DepEd Region III to help learners and their parents understand the value of academic honesty amidst the implementation of the distance learning modality for this school year.
