THE SORRY state of external assessments in basic education — like the National Achievement Test (NAT) — is a story that needs to be told.
For years, we have relied on such exams to gauge the learning outcomes of millions of Filipino students. Yet, as journalist and education advocate Estanislao C. Albano Jr. eloquently argues in his extensive data-driven analysis, this reliance might have been misplaced. It is a sobering realization: if the system measuring learning is itself compromised, how can we trust the scores it produces?
Albano’s research reveals an inconvenient truth: the NAT scores from 2005 to 2015 were likely inflated by as much as 40%, painting a deceptively rosy picture of our educational system. When the test schedule changed in 2016, moving the Grade 6 NAT to after graduation and outside the influence of elementary schools, scores plummeted by nearly half.
The dramatic drop aligns with rankings from international assessments like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This further validates the hypothesis that prior NAT scores were artificially inflated through widespread cheating.
This data has disastrous implications. For more than ten years, the public and policymakers were presented with data that indicated progress when, in fact, the opposite was true. Albano’s research highlights how this false sense of achievement obscured the pressing need for changes in curriculum development, instructional strategies, and resource distribution. Worse, it perpetuated complacency, delaying interventions that could have addressed the systemic rot in Philippine education much earlier.
What makes this issue particularly infuriating is the audacity of those involved in the manipulation. The deception was not a well-kept secret — it was an open one. Albano recounts speaking to retired educators who admitted that verifying the authenticity of NAT scores would have been straightforward, yet no action was taken.
The reason? Inflated scores were seen as a “source of pride” for schools and divisions, an example of twisted structural incentives where institutional reputation trumped integrity.
This deceit extends beyond inflated numbers. Albano points to the Department of Education’s (DepEd) efforts to obscure the sharp decline in NAT scores post-2016 by offering implausible explanations.
In one Senate hearing, a DepEd official attributed the drop to introducing 21st-century skills in the K-12 curriculum, conveniently ignoring that the first K-12 cohort was still years away from taking the exam. This level of gaslighting erodes trust not just in the DepEd but in public institutions as a whole, a betrayal that affects the very fabric of our society. (To be continued)/PN
