The DepEd will also administer the secondary level NAT to 1.5 million fourth-year high school students on March 9.
The NAT used to be called the National Elementary Achievement Test (NEAT) for the grade school level and the National Secondary Achievement Test (NSAT) for the high school level.
Through this exam, the National Education Testing and Research Center — the DepEd’s testing arm — seeks to determine each student’s competency level under the department’s regular and bridge education program.
Under the bridge program, parents can have their sixth-grade children undergo one more year of elementary education to hone their skills in English, Filipino, math and science.
DepEd officer-in-charge Undersecretary Fe Hidalgo, said yesterday that the NAT, basically a proficiency exam, will not be a basis for public schools to accept incoming high school or college freshmen since the government’s policy is to accept all students at any public school so long as they complete all their requirements at the previous level.
Hidalgo said the NAT could also be taken by private school students, depending on the institution. She added that this exam would not be used as a basis for a private school student to be accepted to the next level.
She said that compared to previous years, students’ levels of competency in certain subjects had dropped, particularly in Pilipino.
In public schools, the main medium of instruction is English, with the exception of certain subjects such as Pilipino and Sibika.
In the past, teachers had proposed the use of Pilipino as a medium of instruction, but this was not approved by education officials.
Hidalgo said the DepEd also disapproves of use of Taglish — a mix of Tagalog and English — as a medium of instruction since this could confuse the students, preventing them from fully understanding either language.
"We do not encourage Taglish. If you do that, there is a tendency to fall back," Hidalgo said. "If you speak in English, speak in (straight) English."