A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

216 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

year 32 per cent of the entire pupil body were required to work the
same arithmetical problems, to read the same books, to spell the same
words, to do the same industrial work as in the preceding years. That
the educational value accruing from this distaste of scholastic work
is practically nil can be safely predicted.
Is the large percentage of failure the product of the work of the
present administration? No. "Failing pupils" has been a characteristic tendency of the administration practically from the inception of
schools in the Islands. Data are at hand (summarized in Table 15)
from the year 1908 only. The first seven annual reports do not conveniently give the promotion facts. In the sixteen-year interval, 1908
to 1923, inclusive, four administrations have passed through the Central
Bureau. Throughout this period, year after year, more than a third of
the pupils "failed." In fact, prior to 1916 those who were forced to
repeat the work of a grade total half the pupil body.
Can this administrative situation be condoned? It is the unqualified
judgment of the Commission that it cannot. That an adequate defense
can be found for any school system that "fails" more than 10 per cent
of its pupils is extremely doubtful.
Categorical statements like the preceding one can be made today
only because of the great accumulation of scientific knowledge concerning school administration. In twenty years the technique of administering schools has been placed on a sound objective basis. Hundreds of scientific monographs are now available. They report the
results of careful analysis of marking systems, of experiments in the
classification of pupils, and in the organization of promotional plans
of experiments in the supervision of study, of surveys of entire school
systems. A vast quantitative literature, summarized and interpreted
from year to year in administrative handbooks, provides a valuable
guide for the Central Bureau of any school system.
It is in the light of the evidence accumulated in these two decades
of scientific study that the Commission gives its categorical judgment on
the inefficiency of the Philippine elementary schools. A million children are being taught in the elementary schools each year; over a third
of these are repeating grades. If the system were working properly
not more than 5 to 10 per cent of the pupils should be classified in
the same school "grade" a second year and not one of them should be
studying the same subject matter. The movement of children through
the grades is practically at an impasse. What are the causes and
what are the remedies?
Either one or both of the following factors have brought about the
present situation. Either the yearly units of the courses of study do
not fit the abilities and interests of the pupils, or the "marks" given