By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Aside from DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, which bars the promotion of non-readers and frustration readers to Grade 4, there is another existing Department of Education (DepEd) official policy disallowing the promotion of reading laggards which the agency is pretending does not exist.
Titled “Two Books a Year per Student,” DECS (Department of Education, Culture and Sports) Order No. 34, s. 2001, states: “Starting this school year, all students in public elementary and secondary schools must show evidence of having read at least one (1) book in the vernacular and one (1) book in English per year before being promoted to the next grade or year level.”
Given that in the K to 12 Curriculum, learners are supposed to be reading in the mother tongue and in Filipino by Grade 1 and in English by Grade 3, under DECS Order No. 34, s. 2001, there would be no Grade 4 student who could not read in all three languages as the submission of evidence that a learner has read one book in the vernacular and another in English during the school year is a prerequisite for promotion to the next grade level.
To underline the significance of the policy, had the DepEd been enforcing it, our debacles in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) wherein 80 percent of our students who took the test in 2018 and 76 percent in 2022 were found to be functionally illiterate would not have happened. With all students already basically literate at the start of Grade 4, there would be very little reason for them to remain functionally illiterate when they reach high school given the three-year interval. Our PISA takers are high school students.
The proliferation of reading laggards in the higher elementary grades and in high school shows that the DepEd has been and is ignoring DECS Order No. 34, s. 2001. It has no reason whatsoever to disregard the policy because per DepEd Memorandum No. 324, s. 2004, the policy is a component of the Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP), an existing DepEd flagship program intended “to make every child a reader at his/her grade level.” In fact, with DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, DECS Order No. 34, s. 2001, forms the teeth of the ECARP. This explains why we have a reading crisis despite the existence of the ECARP: the program is being implemented without its teeth.
The DepEd therefore has a lot of explaining to do why it is not enforcing DECS Order No. 34, s. 2001.
In May, in reaction to the finding of the Philippine Statistics Authority that 21 percent of senior high school graduates are functionally illiterate, Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara insisted that the DepEd has no mass promotion policy but conceded that there are features in the DepEd system which may be putting silent pressure on schools and teachers to pass students regardless of performance. He vowed to take corrective action which he has not yet done until now.
Angara’s stress on the absence of a written policy on mass promotion has backed the DepEd into a corner. Angara is implying that since there is no official mass promotion policy, DepEd has no hand in the pervasive practice of public schools of passing to the next grade level learners who have not acquired the prescribed competencies of the current grade levels. However, the agency’s adamant refusal to enforce DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, and DECS Order No. 34, s. 2001, demonstrates that not all of DepEd’s practices are based on official policies thus Angara cannot claim that since there is no official mass promotion policy, DepEd has nothing to do with the pernicious practice.
Too, since DepEd has two official policies that can effectively stop the mass promotion of non-readers and frustration level readers but refuses to enforce them for over two decades now, in effect and by simple logic, the agency approves the mass promotion of reading laggards. That being established, Angara can go tell the marines that DepEd has nothing to do with the mass promotion practice. **
