2/3 of Philippine high schools obtain low NAT scores

Almost two-thirds of the country’s high schools fared poorly in the National Achievement Test (NAT) last school year with some 67.10 percent of schools getting below average NAT scores, the Department of Education (DepEd) said.

This prompted Education Secretary Armin Luistro to order school officials to exert greater effort in raising NAT scores among elementary and high school students.

“To address the need to raise the learning outcomes among the schools which were classified under the poor achievement and lower average rates, all the divisions and the district supervisors are directed to provide intensive supervision to these schools,” said Luistro in an order issued this week.

Luistro advised DepEd’s regional directors and the schools division/city superintendents together with their personnel and staff to plan together on how this intensive supervision could work successfully.

DepEd order No. 72 dated September 20 showed that of roughly 5,600 secondary schools, some 67.10 percent of schools scored within the “lower average” range (26 and 50 percent correct) in NAT for second year high school students. Some 0.35 percent of schools scored between 0 and 25 percent.

Only around a third of the high schools made it to the upper score ranges: 31.41 percent of schools scored between 51 percent and 75 percent, while only 1.13 percent of schools were rated superior, with a mean score of between 76 to 100 percent among its takers.

Results were fairer among elementary schools as only around 14 percent scored within the lower averages.

Almost half of some 37,700 elementary schools scored from 51 percent to 75 percent while 36.28 of the schools were classified as superior, scoring at 76 percent and above.

NAT is administered to Grade 3 and Second Year high school students annually.