CHED mulls test to determine university or polytechnic entry for high school graduates

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is pursuing a move to administer a scholastic aptitude test (SAT) to all high school students that will determine if they can go on to study for a “university degree” or to a “community college”.

CHED Chairman Emmanuel Angeles, in a press briefing last week, said that CHED is looking at administering an SAT-like test to all graduating high school students before the end of the 2009-2010 school year.

“We need to administer an SAT,” Angeles said, to prevent thousands of students ill-equipped for professional college or university degree programs, pursuing such a costly education and then ending up flunking licensure examinations of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

Angeles pointed out that there was a dismal passing rate among examinees of PRC licensure examinations, citing the case of nursing wherein only 40 to 42 percent pass the nursing board exams.

The proposed SAT, Angeles said, will be different from the defunct National College Entrance Examinations in that it will not bar a high school graduate from college but will direct him to either going on to university or a polytechnic or community college where he or she can earn an associate degree in technical-vocational courses.

It will be recalled that the Department of Education (DepEd) has been administering a National Career Assessment Examinations (NCAE) since 2007 wherein all graduating high school students’ competencies are assessed supposedly to help guide them on whether to pursue technical-vocational studies or college.

However, the NCAE’s results, being recommendatory in nature at best, has largely been ignored by the students who have taken them.

Angeles late last year had mentioned a plan to administer an SAT-like exam to graduating high school students but backed down from the undertaking when Education Secretary Jesli Lapus aired his resentment over such a move emanating from CHED, saying that the agency did not have the authority to push for and implement such an exam in the basic education sector.