The Department of Education said Monday public schools would not give periodical tests this year as the education system implements distance learning amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Diosdado San Antonio, Undersecretary for curriculum and instruction, said written outputs and performance tasks would be used to assess students’ learning.
“Ang periodic test, 20 percent ng grade eh. Ang i-a-administer mo, isang araw lang. Ang feeling namin, that’s very unfair to the learner, lalo na ang mga learner ngayon, iba’t iba ang situwasyon,” San Antonio said in an interview.
(The periodic test is only 20 percent of the grade. It is administered for a day. We feel that it’s very unfair to the learner, especially to our learners in different situations.)
San Antonio added teachers could ask the students to write a reflection paper, record a speech, and give other activities that would evaluate their performance.
“Kapag ganyan, nilalagay sa portfolio, iniipon ang proof [of] what they can do and understand,” he said.
(In this case, everything is compiled in a portfolio, as proof of what they can do and understand.)
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No more periodical tests in public schools – DepEd
The DepEd official added that doing away with periodical tests could minimize “distance cheating,” where parents or guardians answer the learners’ activity sheets.
San Antonio also clarified that private schools are not required to do the same but are “strongly encouraged” to adopt the policy on periodical tests for the school year 2020-2021.
DepEd did give final exams for the fourth grading period when the pandemic started, and all schools were closed in the country in March.
The education department created an adjusted formula to compute the final grades of the students at the time.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Leonor Briones said during the virtual “Handang Isip, Handa Bukas” press conference that DepEd achieved 99 percent of the enrollment in public schools, two weeks before the school year opens on October 5.
According to DepEd national data on enrollment, 22.36 million students enrolled in public schools as of September 21. The figures are 99.06 percent of the enrollment in 2019 at 22.5 million.