By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
In a recent podcast over News 5, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. said that one of the problems with our basic education system is the performance of teachers is pegged to the number of the students they promote such that a teacher who passes a higher percentage of his students is adjudged better than the one who passes a lesser percentage. Saying that the practice leads to teachers passing even learners who could not read, he declared that the performance rating of teachers should instead be based on the actual performance of students in tests.
The President is on the right track. First, his solution is akin to an acknowledged key practice in the highly regarded Vietnamese education system, which two British newspapers recently highlighted. The Economist wrote in the article “Why are Vietnam’s schools so good?” that the most important part of Vietnam’s efforts to ensure that its teachers perform at optimum level is “teacher assessment is based on the performance of their students.” In the article “Why Vietnamese children outperform the British at school,” The Telegraph said that teachers’ “job performance and promotions are based on how pupils perform.”
Second, there is no question that it is the obsession of Department of Education (DepEd) for maximum promotion rate which led to the current learning crisis because as observed by the President, the pursuit occasions the promotion of ineligible learners. The folly and futility of the DepEd’s single-minded pursuit of quantity in the last two decades is compellingly evidenced in the following paradox: In SY 2021-2022, the completion rates for the elementary and high school were 99.83 percent and 98.66 percent, respectively. (Completion rate is the percentage of learners who enroll in Grade 1 and Grade 7 who finish elementary and high school in the prescribed number of years.) Also in 2022, the country’s learning poverty rate or portion of 10-year olds who cannot read and understand simple texts stood at 90.9 percent and 76 percent of our students who took the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessments were found to be functionally illiterate.
The President should also address other devious tools being employed by the DepEd in its wild goose chase for quantity among which are the following:
1. Unofficial policy providing that teachers who fail students must conduct the summer remedials for the students without additional remuneration. Of all the tricks being used by the DepEd to attain maximum completion rate, this is the most effective because not many teachers are willing to lose their vacation sans compensation. The usual practice is to avoid the disadvantageous arrangement, teachers just pass all their students.
DepEd Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla admitted the existence of the unwritten policy when she said in the “TV Patrol” news program of ABS-CBN on December 19, 2019 that some teachers do not teach the failing students during summer as they are not given any compensation on top their regular payment during the summer break.
2. Performance-based bonus (PBB) is tied to Drop-out Rate objective of the DepEd. Per DepEd Order No. 33, s. 2014, and DepEd Order No. 30, s. 2015, in the ranking for purposes of the PBB, simple drop-out rate (SDR) weighs 35 points in the points system for the ranking of schools and 10 points in the ranking of divisions. Schools and divisions with 1 percent and below SDR get the maximum points. Because of this, teachers who retain students are treated as villains thereby discouraging adherence to learning standards.
3. The grading system (DepEd Order No. 8, s. 2015) is so designed it allows failing students to get passing grades as proven by the DepEd’s own admission that there are non-readers and non-numerates in Grades 7-10. DepEd-Region 10 Regional Memorandum No. 490, s. 2022, confirms the absurdity as follows: “Learners who have average grade of 80 and above but whose reading competency falls under frustration level shall attend reading remediation sessions under Project CNR.” (Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer July 16, 2025 issue)**
