By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
(Note: This is a still to be filed petition to the Senate and/or House of Representatives seeking the enactment of a law creating an independent student assessment body for basic education.)
This is to petition the Senate to dig into the administration of the National Achievement Test (NAT) and to enact a law establishing an independent body to take over the function from the Bureau of Education Assessment (BEA) of the Department of Education (DepEd). By reason of utter lack of competence and integrity, the BEA has bungled the conduct of the NAT to such extent that CARAGA which has dominated both the Grade 6 and Grade 10 NATs from the inception of the NAT in 2005 to 2015 has been exposed by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 and 2022 to be bogus having placed second to the last among local regions in 2018 and third to the last in 2022. In addition, NCR which was third to the last in performance in the Grade 6 NAT from 2005 to 2015, topped by a wide margin all local regions in both the PISA 2018 and 2022.
Through the years, the BEA and the DepEd looked the other way as rampant cheating attended the NAT specially the Grade 6 test so that when the schedule of the test was reset from the end of the school year to the start of the school year such that the takers were already in Grade 7 beginning in 2016, the mean percentage score (MPS) plunged from the 69.10 percent MPS in 2015 to 41.45 percent for difference of 27.65 percentage points or 40.01 percent. With the new schedule maintained in the two succeeding years, the MPS slid further to 39.95 percent in 2017 and 37.44 percent in 2018. As would be demonstrated later in the letter, the regional rankings in the Grade 6 NAT from 2016 to 2018 strikingly resemble the rankings in the PISA 2018 and 2022 while the rankings in the test from 2012 to 2015 shared almost nothing with the latter.
The BEA and the DepEd were also disingenuous about the cause of the 40 percent drop in the Grade 6 NAT MPS from 2016 to 2018. Apart from not being candid about the results, the BEA and the DepEd also hid the data of the first NATs under the K to 12 Curriculum. Corrollarily, although the results of the 2018 NAT was already available in May 2019, the BEA and the DepEd only made the data public in 2025 through the 2024 Philippine Statistical Yearbook (PSY).
Even while it was very plain that the results of the Grade 6 NAT under the new schedule were consistent with the results of the PISA 2018 and 2022, the DepEd reverted to the old schedule whereby the examinees are again in the custody of their elementary schools starting in SY 2021-2022. The decision earned the Philippines the distinction of being the only country in the world which students were at their best during a Covid-19 pandemic. The MPS jumped from the 37.44 percent in 2018, the last time it was given prior to 2022, to 45.38 percent. The increase of 7.94 percentage points or 21.20 percent was unprecedented in the NAT as the record increment was the 5.28 points or 9.65 percent achieved in Grade 6 NAT in 2007.
Here are the details of the petitioners’ accusations and the evidences proving them:
1. The BEA and DepEd were less than candid when they alleged the 40 percent drop in Grade 6 NAT MPS experienced from 2016 to 2018 was caused by the redesigning of the NAT.
In 2016, the Grade 6 MPS plunged from the previous year’s 69.10 percent to 41.45 percent or by a staggering 27.65 percentage points or 40.01 percent.
The loss was unprecedented as the previous MPS loss record in both the Grade 6 and Grade 10
NATs was the 4.07 percentage points or 6.93 percent reduction incurred in Grade 6 in 2006. Equally concerning was the performance remained in the same bracket until 2018. The MPS was 39.95 percent in 2017 and 37.44 percent in 2018.
Compared to the average Grade 6 MPS from 2005 to 2015 of 64.96 percent, the MPS in 2016 was 23.51 percentage points or 36.19 percent lower. The average MPS from 2016 to 2018 of 39.61 percent is 25.35 percentage points or 39.02 percent less than the average MPS from 2005 to 2015.
The DepEd did not announce much less explain the shocking decimation of the Grade 6 NAT MPS. The three successive fiascos did not merit official statements from the agency. In fact, there is no reference to the results of the 2016 to 2018 NATs in the website of the agency except some general statements alleging that NAT scores reflect the results of the PISA 2018 such as the one titled “Statement on the Philippines’ ranking in the 2018 PISA results” posted in DepEd official website on December 4, 2019.
The DepEd national leadership only broke its silence on the sharp decline in Grade 6 NAT MPS in September 2018 when it reacted to the report titled “Cheating in national test bared by DepEd” (The headline writer erred as the cheating allegation came from the source of the news.) in the September 9, 2018 issue of the Manila Times. The high school teacher source of the report claimed that the change in the schedule of the administration of the NAT from the end of the school year to the start of the succeeding year caused the huge loss in the Grade 6 scores. The source explained that with the Grade 6 NAT takers already in Grade 7 in the new schedule, their elementary schools were unable to “assist” them with their answers like they did in the past.**To be continued
