Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara said on Friday that the country requires more test exams that would match the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
During his interview with Malacañang, Angara stressed the importance of improving the quality of education in the country.
According to him, school assessments should be presented in a manner that can harness the students’ skills and apply them to real-life situations; Encouraging them to be analytical and critical thinkers. The suggestion was aligned with how PISA exams are curated to specific types of skills.
“They present you the situation and you must react to it and analyze it. So, hindi lang siya parang iyong normal exam na ano iyong nangyari itong date na ito o ano iyong cause nito. (It’s not just a normal exam where they ask you what events transpired on specific dates or what the cause of a problem was),” he said
“So they really give you a problem set. It’s a very real-world type,” he added.
In previous years, Filipino students were frequently noted by PISA as behind in subjects like Mathematics, Reading, and Science. Additionally, in 2022, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) PISA conducted its first creative thinking assessment, where the Philippines ranked 62 among the 64 countries and economies studied worldwide.
Angara plans to change the country’s culture of assessment and measurement within its education sector, maximizing the use of technology to modernize education and its outcomes.
“I want to change the culture because we want to have a culture of assessment and measurement, meaning our decisions are not based on what we think or what we feel, but really based on evidence; we measure our outcomes,” Angara stated.
