Now for the good news: Caraga (Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur and the cities of Surigao, Butuan, Bislig), among Mindanao’s poorest provinces, topped all regions in the NAT for the elementary level with an average score of 70.8%, followed by Eastern Visayas (Leyte, Samar, Biliran) and MIMAROPA (Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, and Romblon) with 65.7% and 61.6%, respectively.
Eastern Visayas topped the high school level with 59.7% followed by Caraga’s 58.6% and Central Visayas’ 52.2%.
The NSCB website noted that a score of 75% and above means the student has a “mastery of the subject;” 50% to less than 75%, “near mastery;” and below 50% means “low mastery.”
The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) scored lowest in both elementary and high school, ranking 17th among the country’s 17 regions.
“Scores in all subject areas in both elementary and secondary level went down by about one to six percentage points, an alarming situation that should be seriously addressed by the educators of the country,” the NSCB report posted on May 8 said.
The NATs were administered by the National Education Testing and Research Center (NETRC) of the Department of Educaion (DepEd) to Grade 6 and Fourth Year high school students in government schools in March 2006 “to determine what the graduating students know and can do in five subject areas at the end of the school year: Mathematics, Science, English, Filipino and Hekasi/Araling Panlipunan.”
The NSCB report said that for elementary level, the comparison refers to the same cohort of pupils from Grade 4 in schoolyear 2002-2003 to Grade 6 in schoolyear 2004-2005 while for the secondary level, it refers to the change over time for successive batches of Fourth Year high school students.
Among the subject areas, Grade 6 pupils scored highest in Pilipino, while Fourth Year high school students scored best in Math. But like the previous year, Science was the least of the competencies of both elementary and secondary students at 46.7% and 38.0%, respectively, the NSCB said.
Only one of seven Grade 6 pupils or 14% and one of 100 Fourth Year high school students or 1% had acquired mastery of the required education competencies for their respective grade/year levels. Less than half or 46.5% of Grade 6 pupils and 33.2% of Fourth Year high school students had near mastery education competencies.
The NSCB considers as “another discouraging fact” that 39.1% of Grade 6 pupils and 65.6% of Fourth Year high school students had low mastery education competencies.
The mean percentage scores of the NAT in Grade 6 for schoolyear 2005-2006 are 70.8% for Caraga ; Eastern Visayas (65.7%); Mimaropa (61.6%); Calabarzon (57.5%); Zamboanga Peninsula (57.1%); Ilocos (56.1%); Cordillera Administrative Region (56.1%); Central Visayas (55.5%); Northern Mindanao (54.1%); Central Luzon (53.7%); Cagayan Valley (53.1%); Davao region or Southeastern Mindanao (52.8%); Bicol (50.4%); Soccsksargen or Southwestern Mindanao (49.7%); Western Visayas (49.3%); National Capital Region (49.0%) and ARMM at 45.3%.
Among the Mindanao regions, four had scores reflecting “near mastery” in the elementary level (nationwide Caraga is first; Zamboanga is fifth; Northern Mindanao is ninth; Davao of Southeastern Mindanao is twelfth) while two (Soccksargen or Southeastern Mindanao is 14th and ARMM is 17th) had “low mastery.”
In the high school level, the mean percentage scores for schoolyear 2005-2006 are 59.7% for Eastern Visayas; 58.6% for Caraga; Central Visayas (52.2%); Zamboanga Peninsula (45.1%); Cagayan Valley (45.0%); Cordillera Administrative Region (44.6%); Mimaropa (44.3%); Ilocos (43.0%); Northern Mindanao (42.8%); Western Visayas (42.6%); National Capital Region (42.3%); Central Luzon (42.2%); Calabarzon (41.6%); Davao or Southeastern Mindanao (41.5%); Bicol (40.9%); Soccksargen or Southwestern Mindanao (39.4%) and ARMM at 33.6%.