THE FEDERATION of Associations of Private School Administrators underscored the sudden death of education in the country as shown by the successive flunking of Filipino learners in international academic exams.

FAPSA president Eleazardo Kasilag referred to it as ‘maxima culpa’, from the poor supervision of the education committees in both Houses of Congress to the dismal management of the Department of Education.

“This is even extended to the lackadaisical as well as to the unmotivated classroom processing of both public and FAPSA private schools teachers and administrators,” Kasilag said in a statement.

The group itemized the reality of the surrounding causes why educators are in mourn:

First, the dismal passing rate in the Licensure Examination for Teachers which saw that out of 386,840 examinees in 2019, only 147,353 passed while 239,487 examinees failed for an average passing rate of only 30 percent over an 11-year period.

Second, there were 445 schools with zero passing rate in the September 2019 LET, according to Sen. Joel Villanueva, Senate chair of higher education committee.

Third, the result of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study in 2019 showed that Grade 4 Filipino learners lag behind their counterparts from 57 countries, with the lowest score of 297 in Mathematics and 249 in Science

Fourth, also, in another exam, the Philippines lagged behind other countries in the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 2019, where fifth grade Filipino students who attained the minimum proficiency in reading, writing, and mathematics were much lower than Malaysia and Vietnam. The study is based on the UN Sustainable Development Goal “to ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education” by 2030. A great number of Pinoy students were sometimes equal or worse than their Cambodian counterparts.

And fifth, Filipino students also showed poor in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment, a computer-based test that measures the performance of 15-year-old students in math, science, and reading conducted by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. The Philippines scored 353 in Mathematics, 357 in Science, and 340 in Reading, all of which were below the average of participating countries. DepEd is set to join another round of PISA in 2022.

“This is baloney. It’s like a boxer, having lost all rounds — beaten black and blue — and still, his trainer scheduled him again in the next fight hoping to deliver a lucky punch,” Kasilag said.

“Take the case of the TIMMS where after 2003 with a dismal performance, suffered an even worse finish in 2018, after 16 years, and wish to try again in 2022. Why? Do we now have ‘Darna’s stone’ to deliver us from the evil of flunking?” Kasilag asked.

Most of fifth-grade Filipino students have a first-year of primary school type of reading proficiency level, prompting FAPSA to humbly asked, what happened to “Sulong Edukalidad?”

“I know there are several issues we need to address, but FAPSA move that congestion inside the classroom has to be prioritized aside from teachers’ upskilling and reskilling,” Kasilag said.

“If there are 50 to 60 students in the room, the daily objective of lesson plan to achieve 75 percent of the students has to understand the lesson (cognitive) and love the lessons (affective) to eventually demonstrate the skill (psychomotor) can never be put across owing to lack of order in the room. That is the normal set up in most classrooms in public schools,” Kasilag added.