STRENGTHENING RESEARCH CULTURE

MARIA TERESA C. SANTIAGO

The Department of Education (DepEd) has institutionalized the Quality Control Checklist (QCC) for Completed Basic and Action Research as it continues to strengthen its research culture in the agency. Officials said research enables the Department to keep moving forward and guide decision-making skills in education reform. This tool will help the agency finetune outputs and enable them to make better decisions, come up with better programs, and find the areas of improvement.

The QCC provides specific criteria and can be utilized as a tool in evaluating the quality of completed studies for: (a) the acceptance of the Basic Education Research Fund (BERF) funded research by research committees starting FY 2022, (b) archiving in the research portal; and (c) identifying technical assistance for researchers/grantees.

DepEd has already made the call for submission of proposals and interim guidelines for BERF for 2022 last February. The QCC will guide the evaluation process on the submitted proposals if they meet the criteria set by the Department.

To speed up the adaptation of the field offices to the QCC, the Planning Service – Policy Research and Development Division (PS-PRD) with the Regional Office – Policy, Planning, and Research Division (RO-PPRD), and the Schools Division Office – School Governance and Operations Division (SDO-SGOD) shall be responsible for the cascading and orientation of the QCC. The said offices are tasked to monitor and gather feedback on the use of QCC on the challenges encountered by the stakeholders. They will also initiate the revision and updating of the QCC to reflect the requirements of the research management.

In the spirit of fostering research culture in the agency, the Department previously issued DepEd Order (DO) No. 16, s.2017, titled Research Management Guidelines (RMG), and DO 14, s.2022 to establish E-Saliksik as its official portal of education research. The policies were issued to maintain consistency and uphold research integrity throughout the DepEd.

-oOoThe author is Master Teacher I at Bebe Anac Elementary School