The Filipinos have always been known as English-proficient citizens and has given us unambiguous advantage over other nationalities when it comes to the business process outsourcing industry. English is our second language so doing business with Westerners is easy for us. This has added to our qualifications in surviving in the global arena, be it in business, education, research, and others.
In figures, however, current National Achievement Tests (NAT) administered to public schools show results that may intimidate that competitiveness. The DepEd informs that there has been a 21.36 percent increase in NAT results from 2006 to 2009. The 2009 NAT revealed an increase in Mean Percentage Score (MPS) of only 66.33 percent from 54.66 percent in 2006, which associates to a progress of 11.67 percent. The percentage growth were in all subject areas and spots a steady advancement in the primary education of the country’s public school system.
So, are the figures good or not? It could be and it could be not. The reason is that a 66.33 MPS (from 54.66 in 2006) is still quite a low score. It is actually at the “near mastery level.” The point is that this shows that mastery is only at 14.4 percent among grade 6 students and 1.1 percent among fourth-year high school students. This means below-mastery scores are a staggering 85.6 percent among the former and 98.1 percent among the latter.
Understanding the situation better, in a 2007 interview, Dr. Yolandda Quijano, head of the DepEd’s Bureau of Elementary Education, attributed “reading problems as the main culprit for the poor performance of some students in the NAT.”
To deal with this concern, students have to be trained at the earliest age to read well. To do this, students should be given access to a wide variety of quality books at their schools and a program that encourages reading for pleasure. The best way to develop good reading comprehension is by making reading a habit. They can do so when they enjoy reading. Having done this, the nest generation and those after will be better prepared for any challenges that lie ahead. Subsequently, who can go wrong with a generation of good readers to take care of business?
By: Ma. Janette G. Manlapaz | Special Education Teacher I | Liyang Elementary School | Pilar, Bataan
