By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara should heed the calls for the ending of the mass promotion practice made by state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) in 2019 and the advocacy group Philippine Business in Education (PBEd) in 2023 because there are compelling evidences available in the Department of Education (DepEd) itself which clearly show that the practice is the primary cause of the current learning crisis.
First, before the effects of the mass promotion practice started to impact our basic education in the early 2000s, there were no non-readers in the elementary, only learners who lacked reading comprehension. Referring to the 2002 Basic Education Curriculum, then Education Secretary Raul Roco wrote in DepEd Order No. 25, series of 2002: “It seeks to cure the inability of students who cannot read with comprehension at grade 3 and worse, at grade 6.”
Second, the DepEd fiscal year 2007 budget proposal stated that per pre-test of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory for school year 2004-2005, 1.67 percent of Grade 3 pupils were nonreaders. (See “Education For All: A Functionally-Literate Philippines!”) There is no mention of non-readers from Grade 4 up in the document.
Third, here are some studies undertaken under the Basic Education Research Fund (BERF), the DepEd’s research program in compliance to its mandate under RA No. 9155 to conduct national educational researches and studies and in line with its thrust to strengthen research-based policy formulation and decision-making (DepEd Order No. 43, series of 2015), baring the presence of non-readers and frustration level/struggling readers in senior high school:
“Mabisang Interbensyon sa Pagpapaunlad ng Kasanayang Pagbasa sa Filipino ng mga Mag-aaral sa Ikalabindalawang Baitang.” The authors wrote that after the conduct of the intervention, there were no more non-readers among the 34 respondents. (BERF 2019, DepEd-Cagayan de Oro City)
“Triangulation Model as an Approach to Frustrated Readers.” Author Analiza Teodoro is a Master Teacher II at the Academic Senior High School of the City of Meycauayan (BERF 2021, DepEd-Region III).
“Read Now or Never: A Reading Literacy Improvement Program for Struggling Grade 11 English Readers at the Binan City Senior High School-San Antonio Campus” (BERF 2023, DepEd-Binan City)
These cases are by no means isolated. From lists of BERF studies published in the websites of DepEd field offices, this writer has counted at least 90 action researches on high school non-readers and frustration level/struggling readers conducted in 14 of the country’s 17 regions. Intended “to improve educational practices and resolve problems in classrooms and schools,” BERF studies are undertaken by teachers with their own students as respondents.
Given that the K to 12 Curriculum learning standards provide that by the end of Grade 3, learners should be able to read with comprehension in English (English Curriculum Guide, page 53), just like non-readers, frustration level readers from Grade 4 onwards are also evidences of the mass promotion practice.
That former Education Secretaries Leonor Briones and Sara Duterte never acted on the BERF smoking guns on the pervasiveness and destructiveness of the mass promotion practice meant they were either so inept they did not know what was going on under their nose or worse, they did not care whether or not Filipino schoolchildren learned.
What would take the cake though is if Angara also opts to ignore the evidence because it is clear as daylight it is the mass promotion practice that has killed the chances of the K to 12 Act – which he co-authored – to deliver on its promise to improve the quality of our education. Not even the best education legislations and education programs in the world could work as intended when their implementors wantonly disregard learning standards such that laggards including non-readers freely progress through the grades until Grade 12. Angara’s inaction would thus be an abject betrayal of the K to 12 Act which will be a colossal irony.**
