DepEd reports 99% of students passed in the first quarter; senators unconvinced

The Department of Education (DepEd) on a presentation to the Senate on Wednesday, reported that 99% of students across the country had gotten passing grades in the first quarter of the school year where COVID-19 pandemic pushed schools to shift to distance learning program.

The results were based on reports taken from 156 schools out of 223 divisions from all over the country. Meanwhile, data from the Ilocos Region, Central Visayas, National Capital Region and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has yet to be submitted.

However, senators have questioned and expressed their doubts towards the report seemingly unconvinced of the surprising percentage of students’ passing grades.

Chair of the Senate committee on basic education, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian who is looking into the impact of the pandemic on the school system, has urged DepEd to provide more details on how the data was gathered.

I don’t even know how to interpret [these findings] that 99% passed, and almost no one failed even with the challenges of distance learning. Does this mean [the students] are absorbing and learning their lessons?

Gatchalian said.

In response, San Antonio, the undersecretary for curriculum and instruction said that if they base the interpretation on the grades, the students seem to be learning.

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Yet Gatchalian seemed unconvinced of the explanation and cited the results obtained by the DepEd in Valenzuela City. The result showed that an average of 48 to 55 percent passed the achievement test administered among high school students which he emphasized as something more realistic.

I am happy that almost all of them passed, but we also need to carefully assess where are their weaknesses so we will know our points of intervention…. I am having headaches trying to reconcile the 99% you have and the 55% for Valenzuela,

Gatchalian added.

In defense, San Antonio said that the high rate passers may have been the result of the adjustments made by DepEd and the teachers where delinquent students were allowed to cope by getting an incomplete mark rather than a failing grade.

He also explained that students were rated based only on tasks or written outputs since there were no periodic exams during the shift to distance learning.

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Sen. Nancy Binay also expressed her doubts on the report as she cited reports that parents or other adults in the household of the students may have been the ones answering the modules.

She also urged DepEd to investigate reports on a racket where parents are allegedly paying others to answer their children’s modules. To answer the doubt, San Antonio said that DepEd has no control over parents answering their children’s modules as they could not force them to cooperate. 

We have made it very clear that this [situation of distance learning] is the best time to teach honesty,

he added.