By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
In a recent statement in his Facebook page “Sonny Angara,” Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara tried to distance the Department of Education (DepEd) from the mass promotion practice by claiming among other things that “mass promotion is not a written rule but it has become a silent norm in some places.”
Unfortunately for Angara, DepEd-Region 8 Regional Director Evelyn Fetalvero and DepEd-Region 10 Regional Director Arturo Bayocot both of whom reacted to the statement in the comment section tied the DepEd to the practice.
In saying “I agree. For decades mass promotion has been the silent trend. It’s high time now to correct this. Thank you Sec. Sonny Angara for another significant reform,” Fetalvero has asserted that the mass promotion practice is pervasive. In expecting Angara to act on the issue and describing the needed action as a “significant reform,” Fetalvero made it abundantly clear that the problem is not limited to “some places” as alleged by Angara but is widespread and entrenched.
In saying “It’s high time now to correct this,” Fetalvero implicitly admitted that DepEd is behind the questionable practice. This interpretation of Fetalvero’s words can be borne out by the finding of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) that virtually nothing happens in the whole of DepEd sans a go signal from its central office (EDCOM II Year Two Report, pages 366-369).
On the other hand, this comment of Bayocot was a grave mistake: “There has never been a policy in DepEd on ‘Mass Promotion’. Learning/Mastering the prescribed minimum grade level competencies is always the key for a student to transition to next higher level.” That’s because of all DepEd functionaries, he has provided the country and history the most documentary evidence that DepEd is mass promoting non-readers all the way to high school. A study funded by the Basic Education Research Fund of the DepEd bared that there were non-readers enrolled in Grade 12 in one of the schools in Cagayan de Oro City in SY 2018-2019.
In 2019, through Regional Memorandum No. 243, s. 2019, Bayocot initiated the Project Care for NorMin Readers (CNR) which is “aimed at making every elementary and high school learner an independent reader.” Under the K to 12 Curriculum, learners are expected to be independent readers in English by Grade 4 (English Curriculum Guide, page 86).
In 2020, Bayocot issued Regional Memorandum No. 153, s. 2020, enforcing the “No Read, No Move Policy” or DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002. This means that DepEd is passing non-readers beyond Grade 3 in Region 10 in defiance of its own reading policy.
In 2022 through Regional Memorandum No. 490, s. 2022, Bayocot ordered the stricter enforcement of the “No Read, No Move Policy.” The issuance contains this shocker: “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.”
Even after Bayocot reiterated the “No Read, No Move Policy,” schools in the region continued to pass non-readers. The media reported that in June 2023, the Cagayan de Oro City LGU deployed its college scholars to tutor non-readers in elementary schools proving that it is futile to go against the long-standing policy of the DepEd to disregard DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002.
With one regional director publicly owning that “For decades mass promotion has been the silent trend” and another going on record that the DepEd has set aside its policy barring the promotion of reading laggards to Grade 4 and has formulated a grading system that allows reading laggards to be promoted thereby crippling our reading literacy, there is no valid reason for Angara, the EDCOM II and Congress not to outlaw mass promotion immediately.
The absence of a written mass promotion policy could not be further used to justify inaction because DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, is official but the DepEd never enforced it and the traditional “No Read, No Move Policy” was unwritten but it made all Filipino schoolchildren read in Grade 1 from the American period until the DepEd discarded it in 2002.**
