By Merlina Hernando-Malipot
Education Secretary Leonor Briones on Wednesday said that private schools are “not encouraged” to implement mass promotion or giving students automatic passing grades amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation in the country.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones
(DepEd / MANILA BULLETIN)
In a phone interview with the Manila Bulletin, Briones said that the DepEd does not allow mass promotion in public schools.
“Our existing policy against it still holds,” she said.
Earlier, the Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU) announced that eligible non-graduating students will receive a passing mark instead of their letter grades and will be automatically promoted to the next school year - including those in probation.
In a statement, ADMU said passing the students “is the most humane way of dealing with student grades under the circumstances that we are in, where it is difficult and unfair to make a judgment of failure considering that the students have not been given the benefit of the full semester to improve their performance.”
Ateneo also announced that the current semester will end earlier than scheduled or on May 8 for both graduating and non-graduating undergraduate students.
Briones said that most private schools have the autonomy to create and adjust their school policies. “They have their own operations manuals and majority of these schools base their policies on their respective school standing and situation,” she explained.
“We do not want to encourage all private schools to do the same but we also acknowledge that not all schools are the same and they have their different situations,” she added.
Briones reiterated that the DepEd does not have a mass promotion policy that applies to public schools.
She noted that in view of the prolonged suspension of classes, the DepEd has come up with the basis for computation of grades through the transmutation tables wherein the grades acquired from the previous quarters - along with the grades in the final quarter or before class suspension - will be used for computation of final grades.
“In public schools, we do not pass the students automatically,” Briones said. If the learners are in the “borderline” of not completing the needed requirements to pass, she noted that there are various interventions such as holding of remedial classes or implementing additional requirements which can be completed online. “We’re thinking of ways to help those who may not make the cut,” she added.
At the outset of the suspension of classes arising from the COVID-19 outbreak, DepEd already announced that mass promotion and automatic passing of learners will not be allowed.
Briones said that DepEd “strongly opposes” any move to allow mass promotion of students because the “the law is clear as to the number of days of face-to-face contact between teachers and students.”
DepEd, she added, “might be held liable” if the number of school days mandated by law is violated.