EDCOM 2’s 10-Year Plan Seeks to End Mass Promotion in Philippine Schools

Students who struggle to read or do basic math may soon be required to repeat a grade level, under a sweeping education reform plan submitted to Congress this week.

The proposal comes from the Second Congressional Commission on Education, or EDCOM 2, which released its final report outlining a 10-year roadmap to address the country’s ongoing learning crisis. Among its key recommendations are ending the long-standing practice of mass promotion and phasing out grade transmutation, policies that critics say allow students to move up without mastering essential skills.

Also read: Over 24.8 Million Filipinos Are Functionally Illiterate. How Did We Get Here?

Titled “Turning Point: A Decade of Necessary Reforms,” the report was submitted to Congress on Monday and made public on Tuesday, January 27. It concludes EDCOM 2’s three-year study of Philippine schools and introduces the country’s first unified ten-year roadmap to tackle the learning challenges Filipino children face.

At the heart of the plan is the National Education and Workforce Development Plan (NatPlan) 2026–2035, which coordinates reforms across DepEd, CHED, and TESDA, moving toward a system that ensures real learning for every student.

The plan is sequenced across three milestones in 2028, 2031, and 2035. While EDCOM 2 itself will only accompany implementation until the end of 2027, the roadmap is designed to guide future administrations.

One of the most significant proposals is addressing what the commission calls the “de facto” practice of mass promotion. While no official DepEd policy mandates automatic promotion, the report notes that teachers and school heads often feel pressured to pass students to keep promotion rates high and retention rates low.

EDCOM 2’s findings paint a stark picture. Based on DepEd assessments, only 30.52% of Grade 3 learners can read at grade level. This drops to 19.56% by Grade 6 and to just 0.4% by Grade 12. By Grade 7, 88% of students struggle to read at their level, with 40% to 52% of junior high students reading at least two grade levels below expectations.

“The report confirmed that mass promotion has become a systematic culture,” House Basic Education Committee Chairman and EDCOM 2 Co Chair Roman Romulo said during his privilege speech on Monday.

The commission warned that allowing students to advance without mastering foundational skills only compounds learning gaps over time. To reverse this, EDCOM 2 recommends shifting assessment away from grade averages and toward actual mastery of lessons.

It also called for changes to the Results Based Performance Management System and the Office Performance Commitment and Review Form, saying current metrics encourage schools to minimize failures or inflate grades.

Teachers’ professional judgment in deciding student promotion should also be protected, the report said, with safeguards to ensure decisions are not driven by “institutional pressure.”

Closely tied to mass promotion is the commission’s recommendation to roll back grade transmutation, a policy that converts raw test scores into higher passing marks.

Under the current system, a student who scores as low as 40% on an exam can still receive a passing grade after transmutation. While the policy was intended to standardize grading, EDCOM 2 said it has instead weakened learning standards and masked poor performance.

The commission argued that grade transmutation and mass promotion together have created a system where time spent in school no longer guarantees learning.

“Teachers report that this practice makes it difficult to justify additional remediation, to flag learners for referral to ARAL or BBMP, or to explain to parents why a child who appears to be ‘passing’ is still unable to read independently or handle basic mathematics,” the report stated.

“For the system as a whole, these grading practices inflate reported achievement, distort school and division level data, and weaken the evidence base on which curriculum reform, learning recovery programs, and promotion policies are meant to rest,” EDCOM 2 said.

The commission set a target to phase out grade transmutation by School Year 2027 to 2028 and replace it with descriptive or criterion referenced grading.

The report also acknowledges why mass promotion persists. Schools often promote struggling students to prevent them from dropping out entirely.

DepEd data shared in 2023 shows that about 41.9% of students who enter Grade 1 do not complete their education by Grade 10.

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Furthermore, EDCOM 2 stressed that poor performance is often linked to factors outside the classroom, including absenteeism, child labor, and unstable caregiving. Ending mass promotion, the commission said, must go hand in hand with strong remediation programs.

“DepEd remediation efforts like the Bawat Bata Makababasa Program (BBMP) and the Literacy Remediation Program (LRP) in May 2025 have demonstrated that structured, targeted, and time bound interventions can move the learners that are furthest behind,” the report said.

Beyond the immediate end to “mass promotion” and the phaseout of DepEd’s grade transmutation policies, the National Education Plan calls for a clear focus on the early years. This means prioritizing nutrition, early childhood care, and functional literacy.

The Commission stresses that without addressing these basics, reforms in higher education and later grades will struggle to succeed. Key to the roadmap is fully implementing the ARAL Program and committing at least 5% of GDP to education, with resources frontloaded to give the youngest learners the strongest start.

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