LA TRIDINDAD, Benguet – The Department of Education (DepEd) regional office here unveiled the results of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI), the DepEd’s reading assessment tool, showing that the region had 301 non-readers in English in Grade 4 to 6 and 305 in Filipino from Grades 3 to 6 in school year 2018-2019.
Eighty-four of these non-readers in English were Grade 6 pupils, 118 in Grade 5 and 99 in Grade 4.
The number of non-readers in Filipino was broken down by schools divisions as follows: Baguio City – 174; Mountain Province – 58; Benguet – 26; Kalinga -26; Apayao – 20; Tabuk – 1; and Abra –.0. There was no data for Ifugao.
Those identified as non-readers were among the 53,372 who took the post test in English. Of the number, 9,090 were classified as frustration readers (from 14,682 in pre-test), 23,267 (from 19,781) were instructional readers and 18,673 independent readers (from 12,736).
Of the 39,655 who took the Filipino reading test, there were 11,521 identified as frustration level readers (from 19,519), 23,317 instructional readers (from 21,985 in the pre-test) 22,156 independent readers from 16,147.
The 2018 Phil-IRI Manual describes the independent reading level as where “readers function on their own with almost perfect oral reading and excellent comprehension,” instructional as where “readers profit the most from teacher directed instruction in reading” and frustration as where “readers find reading materials so difficult that they cannot successfully respond to them.”
The 2018 Phil-IRI Manual does not carry the term “non-reader” and had done away with the “non-reader” column in the reading profile and report forms. Previously, however, the Phil-IRI manuals defined a non-reader as “a pupil who is unable to recognize and sound out letter-sound connections for single consonants” and their report forms contained a “non-reader” column.
However, DepEd-Cordillera Regional Memorandum No. 70, series of 2019, which asked the schools divisions to submit their consolidated Phil-IRI results for school year 2018-2019 maintained the “non-reader” column in its report form. The results of the recent Phil-IRI was included in the report on the status of basic education in the region presented by the DepEd-CAR during its executive committee meeting on November 4 in connection to the call of a group of concerned citizens for the Regional Development Council (RDC) to look into the quality of education in the region.
The group had specified the existence of non-readers in high school and the alleged negative effects of the Mother Tongue-based Multi-lingual Education (MTBMLE) on English proficiency as priority concerns to be scrutinized.
The Social Development Committee (SDC) through whom the request to the RDC was coursed through had directed the DepEd and the proponents to discuss the matter and for the DepEd to report the findings and agreements to the SDC.
DepEd-CAR Policy, Planning and Research Division Chief Pio Ecuan who rendered the report said the office does not have any information if the non-readers were promoted or not.
The regional office also reported it had initiated the Project Assistance to Identified Development and Enhancement Needs of School or Project MAIDEN under which the divisions and schools have their banner programs addressing the weak reading skills among other learning deficiencies.
This reporter who was invited to the meeting in his capacity as member of the group seeking the RDC probe had commented that the problem on non-readers all boils down to the unwillingness of the DepEd to enforce its own standards citing that under the K-12 Curriculum, reading in English is among the competencies for Grade 2.
In answer, Assistant Regional Director Florante Vergara who chaired the meeting claimed that the DepEd is not passive in the implementation of education policies and laws even as he disputed allegations in media that the K-12 Curriculum and the MTBMLE are failures stating that both programs are products of research and benchmarking with developed countries.
He said that the problem may lie in resistance to the programs of some teachers “who are not committed to teach” which redound to the low performance of children.
Human Resource Development Division Chief Carmel Meris echoed the view of Vergara saying that the unfavorable attitude of teachers towards the new programs is one reason they are continuously training teachers and trying to revive their commitment to the profession.
Meris also commented that for proper understanding of the non-reader problem, the subject should “pass through research”
Several members of the committee stressed that contrary to the impression of some people, the DepEd has no policy barring teachers from retaining pupils who have not learned the competencies required in the grade including reading.
They said that what may be misconstrued by outsiders as a policy of passing everyone including the underserving is the prevailing policy where identified slow learners are provided with remedial tasks intended for them to be able cope and pass at the end of the term.
Quality Assurance Division Chief Aida Payang said revealed that sometimes teachers are afraid to fail certain students but “we have no policy prohibiting teachers from failing students.”
Explaining that in the promotional guidelines, students pass if they attain the competencies required in the grade, Payang said she cannot find any legal basis for promoting learners even if they are not able to read.
Payang commented that while it is sad the region has non-readers, it is better off than other regions the far that the Cordillera has been competing with the National Capital Region for the top spot in the NAT in recent years.
Lawyer Sebastian Tayaban, Finance Division chief, said that before failing a child, a teacher must have done his best for the pupil and likewise considered the possible effects of the decision on the child. He opined that that when children are retained, it is more likely the teacher had not done what is required of him.
For his part, Administrative Officer Edgardo Alos revealed that some principals frown on failing students due to the effect on the performance rating of the school.
The committee defended the K-12 and the MLBMLE from this reporter’s comment that the 32.10 plunge in the Grade 6 NAT score since the programs were introduced in 2013 is clear proof that the MTBMLE has failed attributing issues against the programs to the non-acceptance by some teachers.
Ecuan also said that it is premature to conclude that the K-12 is a failure and that the right time to pass judgment on the program is in 2023 when the first cohort starting from Kindergarten will have graduated.
The committee also said that the successes of the MTBMLE were not documented and that there is also a need to validate the negative allegations against the program. They also said more studies on the MTBMLE should be conducted.
Vergara called the sharp decrease in the score in the 2018 NAT “national issue” which is not related to the K-12 explaining that the starting in 2018, the exams is no longer content-based but shifted to testing 21st Century Learning.
Citing the claim in the curriculum guide of the MTBLE that mastery of the mother tongue facilities the learning of other languages and redounds to better academic performance, this reporter had pointed out that since 2013 when the K-12 and MTBMLE were introduced, Filipino and English performance fell by 19.94 and 28.01, respectively.
He had further informed the committee that in the Cordillera, between 2007 to 2013, English performance in Grade 6 NAT climbed by 5.29 and 4.79 in Filipino but from 2013 to 2018, English lost 26.80 with the 9.91 points incurred in just in 2018 and in Filipino by 16.13.**By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
