Alan Cayetano calls on UP to resume UPCAT for next school year

THE UNIVERSITY of the Philippines’ Oblation in Diliman, Quezon City, is garbed in “sablay.” LYN RILLON

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Alan Peter Cayetano has called on the University of the Philippines (UP) to resume the administration of the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT) for the next academic year.

Cayetano’s call was contained in Senate Resolution No. 157 filed on Thursday which expresses the sense of the Senate strongly urging UP to conduct the UPCAT starting Academic Year 2023-2024 admission process “more holistic.”

UP has not administered the UPCAT since 2020. According to the university, this is due to “immense logistical challenge of administering UPCAT in the UP campuses and 95 testing centers throughout the archipelago while the trajectory of the pandemic remains uncertain.”

“As the country’s national university and recipient of a lion’s share of budget for SUCs (state universities and colleges), it behooves upon UP to maintain its high standards of academic excellence by, among others, admitting only the best and the most deserving high school graduates through a more holistic admission process,” Cayetano said in the resolution.

Before the pandemic, the basis for admission into UP had been the University Predicted Grade, which generally consists of high school grades and UPCAT scores.

After UPCAT was dropped for the past two years, a composite of the final grades in Grades 8, 9, 10, and 11 determined admission to UP.

Cayetano pointed out that UPCAT is standardized, but high school grades are affected by different grading systems, teacher and school standards, among others.

“Going to UP is a dream of many Filipinos. It is not the student-applicant’s fault that the high schools they attended do not have the habit of giving relatively higher grades,” Cayetano said.

“Without UPCAT, we are killing the dreams of these highly qualified students without giving them a chance,” the senator added.

/MUF/abc