Module 6

SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

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

According to Rabino (2014) as cited by Ariola (2018), “Science 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 41 st
in HS II Math, and 42 nd 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 second year students is
200 points lower and the pupils’ score is more than 200 points lower than that of Singapore
which ranked first both in high school and elementary categories (Ariola, 2018).
According to the report aired by ABS-CBN on June 15, 2011, the “Philippines ranks
7th among nine Southeast Asian nations in the area of education and innovation”. This 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 as
strength”. 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
students’ performance in reading, 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:
The Philippines’ Grades 1-10 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
students’ skills for each unit of Chemistry over the four years of the junior secondary
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 allotted for a school correlate positively to the students’ academic
achievement as confirmed by Burckbuchler (2009) in his article “School Budgeting and
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 have
great impact on the students’ academic performance. This means that when teaching
strategy and learning style match there is a tendency to increase the students’ 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.