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Thursday, July 03, 2008
S. Mindanao students lag behind in national test
DAVAO CITY -- Students in the Davao Region are among the low achievers in the 2008 National Achievement Test (NAT) overall, with both elementary and high school students getting their worst ranking in Filipino.
They placed just a notch higher than the poorest performers -- the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (Armm).
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Overall, Southern Mindanao ranks 12th among the 17 regions in the elementary level while it ranks 15th in the high school level.
The average Mean Percentage Score (MPS) of Grade 6 students in five subject areas tested is 61.27.
In English and Science, the region is at the 11th spot.
Southern Mindanao is 12th in Math and 14th for Hekasi. It scored lowest in Filipino (Rank 16th).
In the high school level, the average MPS in five subject areas tested is 44.30.
Like the elementary level, the high school students scored highest in English and Science (both Rank 14).
The region also ranked 15th in both Math and Araling Panlipunan and 16th in Filipino.
After the release of the results last week, the Department of Education (DepEd)-Southern Mindanao officials immediately met to improve the NAT Results of the region for SY 2008-2009.
They also discussed initiatives to increase the participation rate or the percentage of school-aged children who should be in schools but are currently not enrolled.
DepEd-Southern Mindanao spokesperson Lorenzo Mendoza said for the past five years, the participation rate both in elementary and secondary public schools is declining due mainly to poverty.
The officials formulated a comprehensive package of interventions for implementation by all regional office staff and personnel to address this urgent need.
"This will be finalized and will be presented to the schools division superintendents and the school heads of the schools in the 10 division offices under DepEd-Southern Mindanao," Mendoza said.
DepEd Regional Director Susana Teresa B. Estigoy said there is still a need to resolve the still high drop-out rate, the low percentage of increase in learners' MPS from last year's NAT, and the continued existence of low-performing schools.
"Indeed, we have only one option to take this SY 2008-2009, and that is to give our best in order to do better," Estigoy said.
Recently released results of the 2008 NAT, however, showed an increase in MPS of 5 percent over the 2007 results -- from 59.94 percent to 64.81 percent in 2008 or an improvement of 8 percent, bringing the DepEd closer to its target of 75 percent MPS by 2010.
Around 1.64 million pupils in 30,396 schools took the NAT March this year. The five subject areas have 40 items each for a total of 200 items.
The number of pupils with low mastery (score of 15 to 34 percent) decreased from 8.18 percent in 2007 to 3.67 percent in 2008 while those students moving towards mastery increased by 10.36 percent from 38.72 percent in 2007 to 49.08 percent in 2008.
Schools with low mastery decreased from three in every 100 elementary schools in 2007 to one in every 100 elementary schools this year.
In the key subjects tested, students showed the biggest improvement in Science with a percentage increase of 12.26 percent, from an MPS of 51.58 percent in 2007 to 57.90 percent in 2008.
It was followed by big strides in Filipino and Hekasi posting an improvement of 10.84 percent and 10.47 percent respectively.
Overall, the average increment in MPS in Math, Science and English among Grade 6 students was 6.24 percent, from last year's MPS of 44.29 percent to 47.67 percent this year. (GLP/Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Dumaguete. (July 3, 2008 issue)
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