English proficiency among students improving, DepEd says

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Education (DepEd) said that it was seeing improvement from its efforts to improve English proficiency among public school students if students’ performance in achievement tests are to be considered.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said that the department was also pursuing its programs to further improve English proficiency by pushing ahead with its National English Proficiency Program (NEPP) to strengthen its Teachers Mentoring Teachers program.

Under the program, a total of 10,500 teachers and school administrators have trained on English proficiency for this year.

Lapus noted that there was continuous improve-ment in the performance of students in the National Achievement Test (NAT) within the five-year analysis particularly in English subject. “We recognize English proficiency is critical in learning as other key subjects such as Science and Mathematics use English in textbooks and other reference materials,” said Lapus.

“Filipinos’ edge in the English language is also vital as more work opportunities here and abroad place premium on language skills,” Lapus assured.

It will be recalled that Andrew King, country director of IDP Education Philippines, a group accredited by the Australian government to administer the International English Language Testing Sys-tem (IELTS) exam to Filipinos who seek to enter Australia as workers, migrants or students in its universities, recently revealed a seeming drop in Filipinos’ proficiency in English from the results of Filipino takers of the IELTS they administered in 2008.

In the IDP Education Pty. Ltd’s review of IELTS results they had administered in countries all over the world for 2008, he said that the Philippines’ average overall score was 6.69, which was below the 7 passing score of the Australian government.

In their analysis of the results and the Philippines’ system of English instruction in schools, King said that the deteriorating level of English proficiency could be attributed to the deficiencies in the proficiency of the teachers teaching English as well as the poor quality of resources or textbooks being used in schools.

Lapus, however, assured, that  DepEd was addressing such deficiencies.  — Rainier Allan Ronda, Philippine Star