Mass promotion: Students don’t learn, teachers are ‘shock absorbers’

MANILA, Philippines – Both students and teachers lose in an education system where there is mass promotion, or the practice of letting students progress to the next grade level even if they have not yet mastered their lessons.

This practice should be “decisively addressed and phased out immediately,” the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) told the Department of Education (DepEd) in its Final Report, released on Monday, January 26.

EDCOM 2 found that teachers in public schools “face immense pressure to pass unqualified students” because promotion and dropout rates are linked to performance evaluations of schools and the teachers themselves. In other words, schools and teachers may face “sanctions or negative evaluations” if many of their students are barred from advancing to the next grade level.

The commission quoted one teacher as saying: “Ayaw naming ipasa dahil minsan alam naman naming ang bata, hindi talaga handa. Pero napipilitan kami dahil kapag binagsak namin, nasasabihan kami, pinahamak namin ang division o ang school.”

(We don’t want to pass them because we know they aren’t ready. But we’re forced to because if we fail them, we’re told that we’ve caused trouble for the division or the school.)

EDCOM 2 recommended adjusting the Results-Based Performance Management System (RPMS) and the Office Performance Commitment and Review Form (OPCRF) “to ensure that neither teachers nor school heads are implicitly incentivized to minimize failures or inflate grades.”

That means school and teacher performance should be measured based on their truthful documentation of students’ learning gaps and subsequent efforts to address these gaps, instead of promotion statistics.

Teachers’ heavy load

EDCOM 2 also noted that “teachers remain the default ‘shock absorbers’ of wider social and household factors that drive mass promotion.”

These are factors beyond teachers’ control, such as lack of parental support at home and frequent absenteeism — driven by poverty — that contribute to poor learning.

“At the same time, teachers are expected to organize home visits, conduct parent conferences, and deliver tutorials during the school year and summer, often using their own time and resources and without clear provisions for transport, safety, or communication costs,” added EDCOM 2.

It does not help as well that “extensive administrative requirements” are imposed on teachers when students fail, such as “excessive” paperwork that take time and energy away from actually helping students learn.

“Case files for struggling learners, multiple school and division forms, and overlapping requirements from different policies all add to the administrative load that follows when a child is not promoted,” the commission said.

Scrap grade transmutation, too

Also contributing to mass promotion is grade transmutation, which refers to a low raw score being mapped as a passing grade, based on a DepEd order issued in 2015. For instance, a raw score of 60 is converted to a passing grade of 75.

“By converting very low raw scores into passing or near passing final grades, the transmutation table allows learners who perform far below proficiency thresholds to appear as if they have met minimum requirements, masking the depth of their learning gaps in school records,” EDCOM 2 said.

Because the transmuted grades do not accurately reflect students’ competencies, school and division-level data may then become distorted and misleading. As a result, too, not all learners who actually need help are able to receive targeted interventions such as tutorial sessions or additional resources.

“Teachers report that this practice makes it difficult to justify additional remediation, to flag learners for referral to ARAL (Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program) or BBMP (Bawat Bata Makababasa Program), or to explain to parents why a child who appears to be ‘passing’ is still unable to read independently or handle basic mathematics,” the commission said.

The harsh reality is reflected in results of academic assessments. For instance, 88% of students entering Grade 7 are not “grade-level ready” when it comes to reading, and only 0.40% of Grade 12 students were found to be “proficient” in their subjects. – Rappler.com