MANILA, Philippines – Teacher education is one of the most popular courses in the country, and yet most schools in the Philippines that offer the program are not performing well in the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).

A recent study by non-governmental organization Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) revealed that, for the last 5 years, most teacher education institutions (TEIs) have not reached the national test-taker passing rates.

PBEd said the national passing rate of TEIs for the elementary and secondary exams are 52% and 56%, respectively. These numbers reflect LET takers who passed the exam on their first try. (READ: Know the best schools for teachers in PH)

However, out of 1,025 TEIs for elementary, 601 or 59% did not reach the national passing rate. The same is true for 63% (795 out of 1,259) of TEIs for secondary. Most (68%) of these are private schools. 

What’s worse is that 17 of these schools had no LET passers for both exams from 2009-2013:

• Universidad de Zamboanga (Ipil)
• Unda Memorial National Agricultural School
• Southern Capital College
• Dr. P. Ocampo Colleges
• Asian College of Science and Technology-Dumaguete
• La Consolacion College (Biñan)
• St. Joseph College Inc. (Amaya)
• South Upi College
• Sultan Kudarat Educational Institution
• Camarines Norte State College (Labo)
• Camarines Sur Community College
• Datu Mala Muslim Mindanao Islamic College Foundation Incorporated
• Southwestern Mindanao Islamic Institute
• Southern Bukidnon Foundation Academy
• Wesleyan College of Manila
• Dansalan Polytechnic College
• Southway College of Technology

Of these 17 institutions, only the Asian College of Science and Technology-Dumaguete and La Consolacion College-Biñan have had their education programs closed, while most of the schools could not be reached by PBEd. 

The first 4 schools continue to offer their teacher education programs despite their dismal LET results. 

Worse and worst performing schools

These 17 schools are included in what PBEd identified as the worse and worst performing schools in the country. These are TEIs which had less than 20% of their students pass the LET.

The study identified 129 worse and worst performing TEIs in elementary. Schools with zero takers had no first-time LET takers for the duration of the study.

Meanwhile, there are 146 worse and worst performing schools in secondary:

On Monday, March 17, PBEd director for research Miguel Borromeo said only 16% of LET retakers – those who did not pass the exam the first time – passed both the elementary and secondary exams. He called this the failure trap.

“Odds are, if you failed the LET, when you take it again, you’ll fail it again,” he added. 

PBEd president Chito Salazar said unlike the bar exam and the nursing licensure exam, there’s no limit to the number of times a LET test-taker can fail.

“On one hand, it is true, when you look at this data, it is partly due to the low quality coming out of our basic education. But on the other hand, there is some accountability of the schools to provide better education,” Salazar said. 

The data for the study came from the Professional Regulation Commission. Overall, PBEd analyzed 9 instances of LET results from 2009 to 2013.

The number of TEIs covered by the study varies from the number of existing TEIs, PBEd said, because:

• LET examinees used different names/codes of schools
• The information is based on the undergraduate degree of applicants rather than the Certificate in Teaching Program
• Some TEIs were recently closed down by the Commission on Higher Education. 

Based on the results of the study, PBEd made the following recommendations:

• closure of programs that have consistently performed poorly for 5 years
• a review of LET questions and the teacher education curriculum of TEIs
• possible pre-college screening instruments or standards, such as a national entrace exam for teachers
• availability of each TEI’s LET results to parents and prospective students 
• information on LET application forms should differentiate undergraduate degrees from the Certificate in Teaching Program for better performance monitoring
• information from the Department of Education and private school associations on needed majors or specializations of teachers to better balance supply and demand

“The teachers are really the single most important profession for the development of the future because of all the youth they will mold in their hands, and therefore there is an even greater responsibility on us to make sure that the institutions that produce them are the best of the best,” Salazar said. – Rappler.com