By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
After evading the mass promotion issue like the plague, in the wake of the Philippine Statistics Authority report that 21 percent of senior high school graduates are functionally illiterate, the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) are now entertaining questions on the subject in national media.
Told that some teachers are promoting ineligible learners due to pressure from their parents and to avoid any hassles, DepEd Assistant Secretary Jerome Buenviaje said that teachers have the moral obligation to make sure that students acquire the required competencies of the grade level and that since students learn at different paces, they are supposed to conduct differentiated instruction.
In an interview posted in the Facebook account of the EDCOM II, its Executive Director Karol Mark Yee denied that the DepEd has a mass promotion policy claiming that the practice could just be the “unintended consequence” of “well-intentioned” policies. He speculated that the DepEd may possibly have told its workforce that teachers and schools with zero repetition rates are eligible for such and such benefits prompting school personnel to agree among themselves to pass all their students.
The teacher who reacted that Yee is a fool for believing teachers would resort to mass promotion on their own volition stands on solid ground as the following facts bear her out:
The DepEd spearheaded the preparation and implementation of the Education for All (EFA) 2015 Objectives and Goals of the Philippines (DepEd Order No. 36, s. 2002; DepEd Memorandum No. 177, s. 2008) which includes the following: “Universal School Participation and Elimination of Drop-outs and Repetition in First Three Grades.” The objective set the stage for mass promotion as cases of students falling short of the requirements or dropping out are unavoidable. Since it is on record that the DepEd opened up Grades 1 to 3 to mass promotion, the identity of the one behind the expansion of the practice to the entire basic education system is a no brainer.
As damning proof DepEd has put its entire weight behind the goal to eliminate repetitions and in effect, mass promote, from the time the EFA objectives were officially approved in 2006 to 2022, the elementary completion rate or “percentage of entrants in a level of education that completes/finishes the level in accordance with the required number of years of study” rose from 71.7 percent to 99.83 percent (“Philippines Education For All 2015 National Review,” page 24; and 2024 DepEd targets submitted to Congress). 2022 was the same year the World Bank reported the Philippines had 90.9 percent learning poverty proving that a great majority of elementary school graduates are being mass promoted.
The new DepEd grading system (DepEd Order No. 8, s. 2015) provides for the transmutation of grades wherein a score of 0 is equivalent to a grade of 60 and a score of 60 to 75. In the old grading system, 0 was 0 and 60 was 60 (DepEd Order No. 70, s. 2003). In the old grading system, periodical tests weighed 25-40 percent but in the new grading system only 20 percent. These DepEd inventions allow undeserving students to pass and for nearly the entire class getting into the honor roll.
In 2019, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) confirmed there is a mass promotion practice and had urged the DepEd to rethink and stop the same. The DepEd ignored the advice which is very telling considering it usually addresses concerns raised by the state think tank which by the way, also happens to be the research arm of the EDCOM II.
In its EDCOM II Year Two Report, EDCOM II stated that, based on its findings on the issue of the DepEd having a highly centralized governance structure, virtually nothing happens in the agency without the central office’s go signal. That means that the mass promotion practice could not have invaded our basic education system were the DepEd central office dead set against it – not even if all public school teachers in the country were dying to try the practice.
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