By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
In the wake of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s report that 21 percent of senior high school graduates are functionally illiterate which is an indisputable proof mass promotion is prevalent, the Department of Education (DepEd) still insists there is no mass promotion policy citing the absence of a written document to that effect. The agency forgets there are official documents which show that it deliberately weakened its learning standards to such a point even non-readers can reach senior high school with ease.
Per DepEd Order No. 36, s. 2002, DepEd led the formulation of the country’s Education for All (EFA) 2015 action plan pursuant to the country’s commitment to the Dakar Framework of Action. The country’s EFA goals include “Universal School Participation and Elimination of Drop-outs and Repetition in First Three Grades” which appears as Objective No. 2 in the Philippine Education for All 2015 National Action Plan.
Objective No. 2 bastardized the corresponding world EFA target which is as follows: “ensure that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.”
The world EFA goal does not call for the unnatural elimination of drop-outs and repetitions but merely for the completion of the elementary grades. For comparison, Vietnam which is also a signatory to the Dakar Framework of Action retains students who cannot cope with grade level standards.
I contend that the intent of Objective No. 2 is to mass promote. First, there will always be students who fail or discontinue their studies thus the elimination of drop-outs and repetitions can only be attained by artificial means. Second, the DepEd aligned with Objective No. 2 existing contrary policies and formulated policies which facilitate the achievement of the goal, watering down learning standards in the process.
Since the traditional “No Read, No Move” policy which only allowed the promotion of Grade 1 pupils when they could already read stood in the way of Objective No. 2, the DepEd superseded it with DepEd Order No. 45, s, 2002, which moved the deadline for the learning of reading to Grade 3.
Grade transmutation was also incorporated in the grading system (DepEd Order No. 43, s. 2002). However, it is very telling that the agency would rescind the provision through DepEd Order No. 70, s. 2003, explaining that the same was not officially authorized.
However, in 2015, DepEd flop-flopped again and institutionalized grade transmutation through DepEd Order No. 8, series of 2015, the grading system of the K to 12 Curriculum. Under the system, 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). Tagging it as a mass promotion modus operandi, teachers claim that transmutation enables the ineligible to pass and for nearly the entire class including even functional illiterates to land in the honor roll.
According to DepEd Order No. 8, s. 2015, students who fail in not more than two subjects must pass the subjects during the summer remedials otherwise they will be retained. However, DepEd Order No. 13, s. 2018, amended the policy to the effect that once a learner who failed in not more than two subjects attends the summer remedial, whether or not he or she passes, the learner is already allowed to enroll in the next grade in the following school year “with continuous provision of tutorial services.”
The General Appropriations Act FY 2024 documented the DepEd’s total commitment to the elimination of drop-outs and repetitions as it showed that for 2022, the elementary completion rate – the percentage of learners who graduated in six years – was 99.83 percent as compared to the 71.7 percent in 2006 (“Philippines Education For All 2015 National Review,” page 24), the year the EFA action plan was approved. In 2022, the country’s learning poverty rate was 90.9 percent proving that the vast majority of elementary school graduates have knowledge way below their grade level which is what mass promotion is all about. **
