DepEd lowers passing grade to 70% amid protests

The Department of Education (DepEd) sees the academic standards in public schools to gradually improve after it relaxed a new grading system it imposed on students last year.

Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus issued an order the other day for "additional guidelines" on the new performance-based grading system which was enforced in public schools last October.

Under Memorandum Order No. 4, the passing grade was lowered to 70 percent from the earlier 75 percent in all tests, quizzes and examinations.

De Jesus, however, stood pat on his decision to do away with the use of transmutation tables in computing student grades.

He ordered instead the redesigning of "test-based instruments" in order "to give weight to the basic competencies covered in classes."

Periodic examinations, long tests and quizzes are classified as test-based assessment instruments.

De Jesus issued Memorandum Orders 79 and 82 which took effect last October, setting the passing mark of 75 percent — from 50 percent — and forbade the use of transmutation tables. This raised a howl among teachers and students alike.

"After obtaining feedback on the third grading period results from the field, the Department of Education has deemed it necessary to introduce additional guidelines to ease the transition into the new performance-based grading system," De Jesus said.

"This will enable teachers and students to adjust to the new system. Rather than immediately impose higher norms, the guidelines will allow the gradual raising of academic standards to the desired levels," he said.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), an umbrella organization of government and private school teachers, has warned that at least 90 percent of the 17 million public school students will flunk the school year if the new grading system is not recalled.

Before De Jesus issued Memorandum Orders 79 and 82, public school teachers used transmutation tables where the passing mark was set at 50 percent — even lower in some public schools — because of the addition of a certain number of points to the raw score.

According to ACT, the new system immediately showed its adverse effects on students, millions of whom flunked many of their subjects during the third quarter of the school year which ended last month.

The massive number of flunkers has alarmed public school teachers who said this would endanger their productivity pay.

The teachers’ productivity pay is based on the performance rating they receive for every grading period or quarter. The rating is computed based on the number of students they pass.

Antonio Tinio, ACT national president and an instructor at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, told The STAR that the 75 percent passing grade was "really very unfair" to public school students, pointing out that many private schools adopt a passing grade ranging from 60 to 65 percent.

Private schools, he said, are not even faced with the chronic lack of teachers, classrooms and textbooks as public schools do.