By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Note: This is the last in a series of comments on the reactions of DepEd top officials on the Bicol non-reader problem which was exposed in the national media last February. It directly addresses the call of some legislators for the nationwide Phil-IRI results.
Statement of Secretary Leonor Briones:
“However, the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) is not the reliable measure to represent reading proficiency on a large-scale. Phil-IRI is a tool intended for classroom teachers to assess the reading levels of their students at the beginning of the school year. It is administered to Grades 3 to 6 students to identify those that may need intervention. As the name itself states, it is an informal tool and will expectedly be administered without uniformity and with flexibility. It is not meant to be aggregated for reporting to the public. The aggregation by the Regional Office is only for its internal use, as a rough measure to partially inform on its reading programs.
Among the proper large-scale assessments, with strict standards and controls, are the National Achievement Test (NAT) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test.” DepEd Official Statement, February 19, 2020
Statement of Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan:
At a press conference on Monday, DepEd expressed wariness about releasing the nationwide data because the Phil-IRI pretests were not uniform across all regions. Education Undersecretary Nepomuceno Malaluan said this lack of standardized tools meant results could not be used for policymaking.
“This is a teacher-administered test, unlike the standardized National Achievement Test that students are required to take,” Malaluan told reporters. “The pretests in schools are all different, that’s why while we do have the data, it would be difficult to put these out.”
“DepEd pressed to bare national data on reading,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 19, 2020
Statement of Sect
Our comment:
The two officials were saying in effect that the results of the Phil-IRI could not be released because the assessment tool is not standardized unlike the PISA and the NAT. Granting but not accepting that they have a legitimate basis for their stance, how come they are not releasing the results of the NAT either? The DepEd only had the 2016 and 2017 NAT results published in the 2019 Philippine Statistical Yearbook and before that, there was no way one can access the results unless he requested from DepEd central office or asks all the regional offices for their respective results. The data are not in the DepEd website nor in the websites of the regional offices. The withholding of the information was in violation of DepEd Order No. 55, series of 2016, which states that the results of the NAT are to be publicized through various means including the website of the agency. **
