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Module 6 Science Education in The Philippines

This module discusses the status of science education in the Philippines. It describes the poor performance of Filipino students in local and international science assessments. Students have difficulty answering at least 50% of science questions correctly. The Philippines also ranked low in the TIMSS and PISA exams compared to other Southeast Asian countries. There are several factors that affect the low performance in science, including a lack of support for scientific culture in the curriculum, inadequate teaching methods, insufficient learning materials, and a lack of teacher training. The low government budget allocation to education also limits the success of science programs in the country.

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243 views4 pages

Module 6 Science Education in The Philippines

This module discusses the status of science education in the Philippines. It describes the poor performance of Filipino students in local and international science assessments. Students have difficulty answering at least 50% of science questions correctly. The Philippines also ranked low in the TIMSS and PISA exams compared to other Southeast Asian countries. There are several factors that affect the low performance in science, including a lack of support for scientific culture in the curriculum, inadequate teaching methods, insufficient learning materials, and a lack of teacher training. The low government budget allocation to education also limits the success of science programs in the country.

Uploaded by

wolfey cloud
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Module 6

By: Eva B. Maranan, PhD, REE, LPT

(Source: https://pixabay.com)

OBJECTIVES

1. To give the students a background of the status of Science Education in the


country.
2. To identify what are the factors contributory to low performance in science
among Filipino students.
3. To initiate measures on how to address the existing problems deterrent to
science development.
4. To instill awareness and consciousness among young minds to help achieve
the national goals in relation to science development.

INTRODUCTION

This module discusses the status of science education in our country. Specifically,
it will describe the science performance of students in local and international
assessments, science curriculum, and various science teaching-learning processes as
well as the teaching materials.

CONTENTS

1. Performance of Students in Local and International Science Assessment Tests


2. Science Curriculum
3. Factors Affecting the Performance in Science

Performance of Students in Local and International Science Assessment Tests


The performance of Filipino students in math and in science shows that there is a
need to institute changes and development and adopt measures to improve their
performance not only in Mathematics but also in science.

1999-2000 NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT TEST


nce is the most difficult
subject in basic education in the Philippines. The National Elementary Achievement Test
(NEAT) result shows that Filipino pupils answered 48.61% of the questions in science
correctly which is less than 50%.This means that the students have difficulty to answer at
least 50% correctly.

2003 TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE STUDY (TIMSS)


The third Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2003
shows that for high school, out of 45 countries that participated the Philippines ranked
41st in HS II Math, and 42nd HS II Science. For elementary, fourth grade participants
ranked 23rd out of the 25 countries in both math and science. Our country stopped
participating in the survey in 2008 and so on. The obtained scores of our high school

lower than that of Singapore which ranked first both in high school and elementary
categories (Ariola, 2018).
According to the report aired by ABS-
7th
result was mentioned by Guillermo M. Luz, co-chair of the National Competitiveness
Council (NCC). At a forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Globally Competitive
Philippines, Luz presented that the Philippines was falling behind Singapore, Brunei,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The country is second to the last which is
Cambodia when it comes to education, science and technology and innovation (Rabino,
2014) as cited by Ariola (2018).

2014 NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT TEST


Ambag (2018) wrote that science education in the country cannot be considered
Based on 2014 statistics, the passing rate for the National Achievement
Test (NAT) for grade six pupils is only 69.21% and the passing rate for high school is only
46.38% from 2010 statistics.
2018 PROGRAM FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ASSESSMENT (PISA)
The country also participated in the 2018 Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA). Conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), the study ranked 79 participating economies based on their
ding, science and math. Filipino students had the lowest
mean score in reading comprehension (340 points, below the 487-point survey average).
They also ranked second to the last in science (357) and math (353), below the 489-point
average in both subjects.
The results of the different examinations taken by sample students from our
country show that there is a problem in relation to administration of both mathematics and
science programs.
Science Curriculum

The science curriculum in the Philippines is much different from other Southeast
Asian countries. Since the beginning, the Philippine Science Curriculum has lapses which
need evaluation and corresponding action. The Education Curriculum, in general, is
found to be too congested with so many subjects that are not relevant to development
Below is an excerpt extracted from SCIENCE FRAMEWORK FOR PHILIPPINE BASIC
EDUCATION published by DOST-SEI and UP NISMED in 2011. It describes the basic
science curriculum as follows:

-10 Science Curriculum envisions the development of scientifically,


technologically, and environmentally literate and productive members of society. They must
possess effective communication and interpersonal and lifelong learning skills as well as scientific
values and attitudes. These skills will be acquired through a curriculum that focuses on knowledge
relevant to real world and encompasses methods of inquiry. These will be implemented in a
learning environment that promotes the construction of ideas and instills respect for others.
The above curriculum includes inquiry skills, scientific attitudes and content and
connections. These things are helpful in developing better science learners.
With the implementation of K-12 Curriculum, the discussion of the topics in science
subjects uses spiral approach to achieve continuity of the topics from one grade level to
the next thus eliminating congestion of so many topics per grade level.
A study initiated by a team from UP Diliman, in partnership with University of
Melbourne and funded by Australian government aimed to investigate the progress of

curriculum. Identification of progress will be achieved by assessing students as they


progress from Grade 7 to Grade 10. The team is headed by Dr. Marlene Ferido from UP
Diliman.
Having the above goals for science education, only few schools can achieve such
goals due to some factors which hinder the 100% implementation of the curriculum.

Factors Affecting the Performance in Science


The main factors that affect the low performance in science of Filipino include the
following: (1) lack of support for scientific culture reflected in the deficiencies regarding
the school curriculum, (2) inadequate teaching-learning process, (3) insufficient
instructional materials and (4) lack of training among science teachers.
The factors mentioned above boil down to the low allocation of budget to the
implementation of science program by the government. Whatever program or project that
the agency or department would like to execute if financial allocation is limited then
success of the said program/project may not be achieved. Ariola (2018) wrote that the
allocated budget by Philippine government for public educational institutions for all levels
of education is only 3.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is lower than 7.4%
of Malaysia; 4.0% of Thailand; 4.0% average for all World Education Indicators (WEI)
countries and 5.2% for Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
countries. At all levels of education, the Philippines spend only 7.2% which is still below
the 40% of Thailand and 28% of Malaysia but slightly higher than the 16.9% average for
WEI countries and higher than the 13.3% average of the OECD countries, respectively.
The budgeting

Student Academic Achievement.


The teaching-learning process is another issue. Iurea, et.al (2011), found out
that the learning styles used by the students and strategies employed by the teachers

teaching strategy an
academic performance. Further, Muvla (2020) emphasized that the teacher-student
interaction matters a lot in the academic performance of students. On the contrary, the
cross-country study of Cordero, JM., et.al (2015) stressed that modern teaching
strategies give little significance on the academic performance of students.
On the other hand, the insufficiency of instructional materials in school
especially in science laboratories is an issue that needs to be addressed. Instructional
materials help the students understand the lesson more easily than without IM. Their
academic performance is significantly correlated to the use of instructional materials used
(Adalikwu, 2013). If insufficiency of IM is an issue what is more alarming is the absence
of it especially during the conduct of science laboratories or experiments.
Next problem is the lack of training among science teachers. Commonly, science
teaching is focused much on lectures and the laboratory part of the subject is being
sacrificed. The reason is that some science teachers themselves are not exposed in
manipulating science equipment or if they are knowledgeable there is lack of laboratory
equipment thus the laboratory skills among students are not developed.

ACTIVITY 1-Reading of Selected Articles

Article 1:

Set A Questions

1. What were the experiences of Mr. Ambag when he was a student in the public school?
2. What are the factors that can be attributed to the low performance of Filipino students
in reading comprehension, science, and mathematics during the 2018 Program for
International Student Assessment (PISA)?
3. What makes science interesting to Mr. Ambag?

Article 2.Science Education in the Philippines: Challenges and Prospects.


Framework for Philippine Science Teacher Education. (2011), DOST-SEI & P-NISMED,
Manila

Set B Questions

1. What are the realities between science teachers and students?

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