Study hammers ‘alarming’ state of RP education

An "alarming" number of students about to enter Philippines universities lacked a basic mastery of key subjects, while those entering high school fared only marginally better, a report said yesterday.

Barely any fourth year students or sixth graders achieved the 75 percent "mastery" benchmark for mathematics, science, Filipino and English languages, and social studies, the National Statistical Coordination Board said.

While somewhat better than the 2003-2004 scores, the results of a national achievement test for the 2004-2005 school year "revealed that the quality of basic education in the country remains poor," the board said in a statement.

"Science was the least of the competencies of both elementary and secondary students," the government-backed study said.

"Only one out of five grade six pupils and one out of 200 fourth year students had acquired mastery of the required education competencies for their respective grade/year levels," the report said.

"It is alarming to note that there were barely any fourth year students with mastery of Filipino, while for Science, there were only 1.8 percent students with the required mastery."

Those belonging to smaller classes and who had more textbooks "performed slightly better" than those belonging to classes with 91-100 pupils.

The agency said the study was similar to the results of a 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.

Filipino fourth-graders in that study ranked third last in both math and science among 25 countries, while second-year Filipino high school students ranked 41st in math and 42nd in science among 45 countries tested. — AFP