THE aim of education and the department that holds it (Department of Education-DepEd) is to teach the learners lessons so that they will be capacitated to understand how it is to live and be able to weather the challenges of living. The country wants its citizenry to have these abilities and through its agency, the DepEd, it requires the parents to send every learner to school. My discernment tells me that passing a learner to a level that he/she is not qualified to is a deviation and sheer contradiction to the spirit of education and the mission of the department.
This is not me trying to be ideal about setting a high academic standard. The passing mark remains the same (75%). Passing an unqualified learner is not even practical. When a learner passes a grade level, for instance, without attaining the required competency level, the act of passing denies the child the opportunity to reflect on his/her negligence. That is, if one believes that formal education is the best and most complete way to achieve holistic growth. Giving a passing grade to an undeserving student is like telling her/him to proceed when she/he is not ready to go. The result is confusion and difficulty on the part of both teachers and students. Teachers will have hard time to teach and students will have hard time to learn. Both are stressed, and worst, students lose confidence in themselves because of their difficulty coping.
The greatest failure of an agency affiliated with the academe is to make it appear that students in the school perform satisfactorily, but in reality, the academic performances of many are poor and do not deserve to pass. There are two aspects of this decision in my opinion. First, administrators and/or teachers want a clean record hence a decent report to the higher office and second, out of pity and maybe compassion, they want to help the learner. There are many reasons for this “help” factor. It can be that the student is a kind soul or he comes from a poor economic background. Perhaps she/he is acknowledged to be a slow learner or she/he is related to the right people.
I feel there is confusion in the concept of “helping a learner.” In my observation, we pass a learner even if she/he is not qualified to pass because we look at it as genuine expression of help. She/he will be grateful to the teachers and the school and will look forward to another step in educational level. It will be more challenging for her/him to cope though because she/he had not mastered the competencies in the previous level. She/he will either try her/his best by studying harder than the rest of the learners or will hope that she/will receive the same mercy from her/his teachers and the school administration again.
One of the foremost concerns in our educational system is that many reports hardly reflect the true situation happening at the school levels. Reports are the bloodline of organizations such as DepEd. Good report is perceived to be efficient and effective on the part of the source. This would mean award and recognition. On the other hand, reports that contain head-scratching data, such as higher rates of drop-outs and retention, can mean inefficiency or ineffectiveness. The equivalent is absence of recognition certificates and low incentives plus raised eyebrows. There should be no issue on this because reports are really the basis of awards and recognition system but the manner of dealing with reports having unsatisfactory data makes this part problematic.
So, the goal now of those in charge of making reports are to ensure that the data are pleasing to the eye of the receivers even if, in the spirit of justice and truth, they are not factual. The problem is not mostly on the moral side of making honest reports, though it is major, it is on the failure of addressing the immediate needs of those concern particularly the teachers and the learners. How can we provide an immediate and effective response to educational problems when reports, for instance, show positive data throughout? The truth about the situation only comes out in national and international assessment tests where the results come directly from the paper tests.
Passing a grade level or an academic stage is always relieving news. It is an accomplishment for all stakeholders, especially for most parents. The question is whether the learner legitimately passed or not. The administration and the teachers are the most involved personnel in providing the answer. Passing learners should be in accordance with the goals of education and not on personal or organizational motive to be considered an accomplishment. If not, passing, in all its beauty, should be regarded as a failure.