The numeric grading system will be retained for the coming school year, the Department of Education said, as most students would be learning from their homes as face-to-face classes remain suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even as we want to make everything comfortable, safe and loving and great for our learners and teachers, we also want them to achieve the learning objectives which we have set for ourselves,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones said in a virtual press briefing.
According to Diosdado San Antonio, undersecretary for curriculum and instruction, shifting to a new grading system would mean additional work for teachers, which the department did not want to impose.
“Kahit letter grades iyan or pass or fail, gagamit pa rin sila, mag-add pa rin iyan ng performance ng bata so gusto po natin maiwasan ‘yong mga dagdag na aaralin pa ng mga kasama natin guro,” he said.
San Antonio said it would also be difficult for colleges and universities to decide on scholarships in the absence of a numerical grade.
San Antonio also said that the department was set to issue guidelines for classroom assessment.
“We are modifying the criteria but numerical ratings will be used,” he said.
DepEd issued the clarification in response to a proposal by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, which pushed for a more “humane” and “flexible” grading system through a “pass or fail mechanism.”
Class performance is usually measured through reports, group presentations, and participation during discussions, which are not applicable to distance learning, ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio had said.
“We recommend a ‘pass or fail’ mechanism for evaluation that rely more on the students’ ability to exhibit and apply lessons to productive tasks at home and in their communities,” Basilio said in a statement on Saturday.
The opening of classes for public schools is scheduled to start on October 5 while private schools are allowed to start earlier as long as they implement distance learning and follow health standards.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Leonor Briones reported Monday that 85.07 percent of target learners have enrolled for the incoming school year which opens on October 5.
In a virtual press briefing, Briones said 23,643,113 learners have enrolled in private and public schools nationwide out of the targeted 27,770,263 learners who enrolled in the previous academic year.
“We’ve achieved 96 percent of our previous enrollment in the public sector and now our private schools enrollment is picking up may be because our economy starts to pick up especially in NCR and Region 4-A and we see learners who choose private schools for their education are slowly coming back at 41 percent,” she said in a mix of Filipino and English.
According to data from the DepEd, as of Monday, 21,813,184 have enrolled in public schools and 1,785,323 in private schools.
Region 4-A (Calabarzon) logged the highest number of enrollees with 3,221,518 while the Cordillera region recorded the lowest with 377,587.
“And also, the migration of learners from private schools to public schools, seems to be calming (down) already, because our economy is opening already,” Briones said.
As of Wednesday last week, the number of private school students who transferred to public schools stood at 398,009.
Of the total number of transferees, some 243,631 are elementary students, 105,845 are junior high school students, 41,937 are senior high school students, and 6,596 are learners with disabilities.
The enrollees were from kindergarten to senior high school, as well as learners with disabilities and those taking the alternative system. With PNA