DepEd eyes creation of task force to address poor student performance

EDUCATION Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara yesterday said he is eyeing the creation of a task force to study and make recommendations on how to address the poor performance of Filipino students in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests.

“One of our recommendations is that we put up a task force for the PISA exams specifically,” Angara said, adding that there is a need for such a measure to ensure that Filipino students will fare better in the PISA exams.

On Monday, Angara vowed to improve the performance of Filipino students in national and international assessments.

“Quite frankly, it’s become an embarrassment for us. It’s become a national embarrassment. Wala akong sinisisi dito. Sinasabi ko lang na kung gusto nating resolbahin ito ay kailangan magsama-sama tayo (I’m not blaming anyone. What I’m saying is we should work together if we want to resolve this problem),” he said.

Filipino students are among the lowest performers in the new PISA test on creative thinking, garnering a mean score of only 14, way beyond the 33 average set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that was released last month.

The new PISA study measures the ability of 15-year-old students to generate and evaluate new ideas, along with other aspects of creativity.

The 14 mean score of Filipino students placed the Philippines in the bottom four of the 64 countries included in the study.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, results of another PISA study showed that Filipino students fared worst among more than 70 countries in terms of reading comprehension.

A December 2023 PISA report also had the same results, showing that the average scores of Filipino students in Reading, Mathematics and Science have not improved compared to other countries.

The report stated that Filipino students aged 15 years old garnered only 356 points in Science, 347 in Reading, and 355 in Mathematics.

The mean score among OECD countries were 472 points for Mathematics, 476 in Reading and, 485 in Science.

To further boost the quality of basic education, Angara said the department under his watch would shift to making students more focused on “problem solving” instead of