While an advocacy group is lamenting the persistently low passing rates among Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) takers, Senator Win Gatchalian is pressing the need to fully implement the Excellence in Teacher Education Act (Republic Act No. 11713).
Based on the Philippine Business for Education’s (PBEd) study on the Board Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers (BLEPT) from 2010-2022, the passing rate for overall takers at the elementary level is only 37% and 40% for the secondary level.
The study further reveals that based on the overall passing rates of Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) with at least 300 takers in at least seven out of 12 years, the share of high-performing TEIs at the elementary level is only 2.2% and 2.0% at the secondary level. High-performing TEIs have an overall passing rate of at least 75% in at least 7 out of the 12 years from 2010 to 2022.
The percentage of low-performing TEIs from the same period is 34.8% at the elementary level and 24.4% at the secondary level. Low-performing TEIs are those with an overall passing rate of at most 25% in the same period.
According to Gatchalian, the Excellence in Teacher Education Act is already in place and needs full implementation to address low passing rates of the LET and to increase the number of high-performing TEIs. The law, which Gatchalian authored and sponsored, seeks to improve the quality of teacher education and training through a revamped Teacher Education Council (TEC), which will strengthen the coordination between the Department of Education (DepEd), the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). This is to ensure coherence in teacher education and training from pre-service to in-service.
“Sa pagsisikap nating iangat ang kalidad ng edukasyong natatanggap ng ating mga kabataan, mahalagang tiyakin din natin na nakatatanggap din ang ating mga guro ng dekalidad na edukasyon, lalo na’t sila ang may pinakamahalagang papel sa pagkatuto ng ating mga mag-aaral,” said Gatchalian, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education.
In her presentation of the 2023 Basic Education Report (BER), Vice President and Secretary of Education Sara Duterte said that the DepEd aims to make the new TEC and its Secretariat fully functional. She added that the TEC will start working on its mandates, including the setting of minimum requirements for pre-service teacher education programs in the country.
