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.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

217

pupils are not true measures of their attainments. The Commission
believes that in its operation of both of these phases of administration
the system is at fault.
The Commission found that aside from the final examinations given
from Grades IV to XI, inclusive, the promotion of pupils was based
almost entirely on the unchecked opinion of teachers. Taking the system as a whole there is astonishingly little use made of standardized
tests. The members of the Commission observed nearly eight hundred
class-exercises. Only rarely did they encounter systematized use of
scientific measuring devices. Occasionally the initiative of a progressive teacher resulted in definite objective knowledge concerning the attainments of her pupils. In the main, however, the basis of promotion
was the unchecked opinion of the teacher averaged with the work on
the final examination.
Adequate comment has already been made in Chapter I on the
character of the final examinations. The recommendation has been
made that these should be abolished. The parallel recommendation is
now made that there should be a widespread and frequent use of carefully standardized tests. The construction and administration of the
tests should be delegated to the measurement specialists in the Academic
Division. There should be systematic instruction of teachers in service
in the use of practice exercises and standardized tests.
Equally important is the need for the standardization of the marking
system. If many objective measures were obtained of the work of a
pupil in the course of a school year, teachers could base their annual
"marks" on a definite rank order of attainment. Many studies of this
problem in the United States establish the fact positively that, if this
were done, not 5 per cent of the pupils of the elementary-school system
would be improperly rated in comparison with their fellows.
In addition to using tests which through careful construction give
sound measures of the attainments of pupils, the Bureau should canvass
thoroughly the "standards" which it applies to their work. There is
no doubt in the minds of the members of the Commission that the present
standards of "passing" are too high. This matter is tied up closely,
however, to that of the adequacy of the materials of instruction which
Filipino pupils are studying. The full treatment of that topic is taken
up in the next section. Nevertheless, a summary reference to it is
necessary here.
One of the fundamental causes of "failures" lies in the fitting of the
curriculum to the classification of pupils. The chief problem of the
elementary school is to organize a course of instruction which is adapted
to the living conditions of Filipinos and which is graded and arranged
to fit the stages of growth of Filipino children typical of the respective