Evaluating the Academic Performance of K-12 Students in the Philippines: A Standardized Evaluation Approach

With growing technological advancements, demands for the industry with skilled and equipped workforce are proportionately rising. While this match between curricular offerings in academia and needs in the industry has been addressed in many countries across the globe through initiatives such as the K-12 educational system, some countries like the Philippines have only started its adoption. In the Philippines’ early adoption of the K-12 educational system, several concerns have been raised regarding its implementation, mainly, the mismatch between coursework offered in Philippine K-12 educational institutions with industry demands. With such outcomes, it is necessary to determine the status of the K-12 educational system in the Philippines. This paper attempts to shed light on such concerns by evaluating the performance of the K-12 students using a standardized approach. The Scholastic Abilities Test for Adults, a standardized test for measuring the academic competence of adults, is used in this study to measure scholastic abilities. The descriptive analyses made in this paper may aid in the development of more robust strategy frameworks for positioning the current K-12 educational system to global and industry demands. Moreover, the results obtained in this study would aid stakeholders in overseeing strategies that would address current gaps in the K-12 educational system of the country.