LEARNING GAPS Filipino students in Grade 5 are likely to struggle toward secondary school as most of them do not meet minimum proficiency in reading, writing and mathematics, according to a comparative study conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia. — INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education on Thursday said it is addressing the education quality by investing in educational facilities and reviewing its curriculum after a 2019 study showed the country’s poor performance in math and science tests.
“I think, until recently, the government is investing in educational facilities. We also transformed the National Educators Academy of the Philippines to make sure the training of the teachers would really focus on the competencies we identified with them,” Education Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio said over ABS-CBN News Channel, reacting to the International Mathematics and Science Study 2019 (TIMSS) results which showed Philippines ranked lowest among the 58 nations who took part in mathematics and science tests.
“In fact, recently, we also reviewed Philippine Professional Standards of Teachers to be more attentive to the competencies expected of them so that they could be very effective. We also made sure that even the curriculum is being reviewed,” he added.
San Antonio also hoped that the country’s ranking would improve in the next assessment, following the education department’s efforts to address quality education issues.
“Hopefully, in the next round of assessment, we will be able to demonstrate the efforts we are doing now in addressing the challenge of quality education in our country,” he said.
Aside from the TIMSS, Philippine primary school students were also lagging in math, reading and writing proficiency.