Debates over “grade inflation” escalate at the moment of 12 months particularly because the College of the Philippines (UP) system holds graduation workout routines in its numerous campuses nationwide, and the variety of Latin honors awarded is publicly reported.
Final weekend, the final of the UP campuses to carry its commencement rites, UP Los Baños (UPLB), accomplished the image with 28 summa cum laude, 437 magna cum laude, and 649 cum laude. The entire of 1,114 honor graduates comprised greater than half (55 %) of the two,024 baccalaureate (bachelor’s diploma) graduates of UPLB. Every week earlier than, the primary campus of UP Diliman graduated 286 summa, 1,109 magna, and 788 cum laude, collectively comprising 62 % of all baccalaureate graduates numbering 3,511. All UP campuses produced 344 summa, 2,142 magna, and a pair of,742 cum laude graduates, properly over half of the overall baccalaureate graduates within the UP system.
Seven years in the past, even with simply 37 summa cum laude graduates in UP Diliman, a social media person had already quipped that summa graduates have been “sampu sampera” (10 for a centavo); the 12 months earlier than that, there have been 30. The quantity began to exceed 20 in 2010, after averaging lower than 9 within the previous decade, and fewer than 4 within the Nineties. Fellow retired UP professor and Inquirer columnist Randy David wrote two years in the past on how within the Nineteen Sixties, “there would normally be not more than 20-30 cum laude, two or three magna, and possibly one or not even a single summa” in a typical tutorial 12 months (there have been in truth solely two within the Nineteen Sixties). There was none in Diliman once I graduated in 1975, and just one in all the UP system then (from UPLB).
To make certain, it could properly be argued that there has additionally been a “mind growth,” and that younger folks have really develop into smarter through the years for numerous causes. However grade inflation was unmistakably behind the sudden ballooning of Latin honors at UP Diliman after the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas there have been 28 and 29 summa in 2020 and 2021, respectively, the quantity ballooned to 150 in 2022, additional doubling to 303 in 2023. However what defies logic is how magna cum laude graduates exceeded the cum laude ones beginning in 2022. Additionally since 2022, there at the moment are extra UP college students who graduate with honors than those that don’t. The explanations may be readily defined. That was a interval when a coverage of leniency was mandated—not simply in UP, and never simply in faculty however in elementary and highschool ranges as properly—and no failing grades have been to be given to college students, for humanitarian issues. This was prone to have led lecturers and professors to regulate by pushing grades up for the remainder of college students higher than the “pasang-awa” (these handed out of compassion).
Even properly earlier than the pandemic, quite a few worldwide researches already documented and analyzed grade inflation, citing a number of explanations, together with (1) vast availability and ease of looking for instruments to assist with course necessities on the web, reminiscent of pattern exams together with particular professors’ previous ones, related references for analysis papers, and extra just lately, synthetic intelligence instruments; (2) elevated use of scholars’ evaluations as foundation for college promotion, main lecturers to be beneficiant with grades to achieve favor, and (3) college students intentionally participating in strategic grade-raising conduct like choosing simpler programs, avoiding difficult analysis matters, “purchasing” for lenient professors, and extra.
Grade inflation is an issue not a lot as a result of it “cheapens” Latin honors and removes the shortage worth in a title that accords status and elite standing. What ought to fear us extra is how it’s symptomatic of the extra elementary drawback of grading methods ceasing to be good indicators of scholars’ skills, and at worst, turning into an outright impediment to studying. College students’ (and even their dad and mom’) conduct has come to be directed at getting excessive grades moderately than buying the related studying they might want to safe their future—and the 2 are usually not essentially the identical. And the place lecturers’ efficiency and promotion are assessed based mostly on their college students’ grades moderately than precise studying outcomes, the broader the 2 will diverge.
Analysis and consultations by the Second Congressional Fee on Schooling (EdCom II) have certainly witnessed this distortion, seen to be a significant contributor to the nation’s present training disaster. EdCom II sees the necessity for an unbiased physique to evaluate precise studying outcomes of scholars in our faculties properly past numerical grades, or probably even dispose of grades altogether. Randy David could also be proper to recommend that we free training “from the inconsiderate pursuit of grades” and “restore the enjoyment of studying… [by] abolishing grades altogether.” As for Latin honors, they’d be way more significant if based mostly on extra qualitative measures, moderately than merely assembly numerical grade cutoffs.
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