Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sonny Angara said the agency is distancing itself from practices promoting “mass promotion,” a trend within learning institutions where mechanisms are utilized to speedily advance learners’ grade levels.
This comes following the Second Educational Commission’s (EDCOM 2) final report, which argued that the prevalence of mass promotions in schools has hindered students’ learning skills.
Only 30.5 percent of learners who took the Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment (ELLNA) were labelled as “proficient,” which further depreciates to 0.4 percent at the end of Grade 12.
The Education Secretary said that he is now reworking certain measures, one of which includes teachers serving as tutors to students at the brink of failure.
“It is the same teacher who tutors the failing students from his/her class. So here the teacher will not fail anyone because it means additional work,” Angara said in a Viber message to The Standard.
He will also be looking into retooling the grading system to prevent mechanisms present in its transmutation, where students who failed were automatically passed.
The DepEd chief admitted that these practices caused an “unintended” sense of hope to students, as reflected in their academic performance by the basis of their grades.
“Another is transmutation of grades at the school level, where 60 is changed to 75. We are also going to move away because this has given a false sense of security in the past,” Angara said in mixed Filipino and English.
A Quezon City school told The Standard that students who get failing grades in successive quarters are either sent to remediation or are retained.
Moreover, only students who excel in academics are allowed to join extracurricular activities, including sports events.
