PRC urged to release previous LET questionnaires for experts’ evaluation

The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) was urged on Wednesday to let selected education sector stakeholders access the previous questionnaires that had been used in the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) so that these may be evaluated with the end goal of improving teacher education in the country.

"It is not the policy of the PRC to release previous LET items but many are asking PRC now and in the past to release a copy for experts to review and I think that's important," Senator Joel Villanueva said in a Senate hearing on a bill seeking to enhance the quality of teacher education.

"If the goal is to look and evaluate the items in LET [and] if items in LET are coming out in Morayta and in different bookstores, why not make it official so that perhaps our friends from CHED [Commission on Higher Education], DepEd [Department of Education] and PNU [Philippine Normal University] can review them?" he added.

Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations of the Philippines managing director Joseph Noel Estrada backed Villanueva and said there is no prohibition in law for such action.

"The PRC is not prohibited from releasing exam questions after the conduct of Board exams. Republic Act 8981 merely mandates that the PRC should ensure and safeguard the integrity of all licensure examinations," he said.

"In fact, the PRC is mandated by law to provide sample questions and syllabi per subject before the Board exams," he added.

PRC Board for Professional Teachers chairperson Dr. Rosita Navarro also said that the PRC employs third-party reviewers in the test construction and that the LET questionnaires are aligned with the Policies, Standards and Guidelines set by the CHED.

"We do item analysis for every subject and what the third party is doing is strike out the items that are not valid or not reliable and they are substituted with better items," she said.

She added that PRC releases five sample LET questions per subject to universities and colleges offering teacher education programs.

"We are permitted to give five sample questions. However, we are limited to only teacher education institutions. It does not mention any other agency of the government," she said.

"We have been giving them samples of these questions to help them in the preparation of their students... Many of them ask for samples," she added.

Navarro, however, said the PRC Board for Professional Teachers is not allowed to release copies of the exam questions after the LET, pursuant to the implementing rules and regulation (IRR) of the PRC modernization law.

Senate committee on basic education chairperson Sherwin Gatchalian, meanwhile, stressed that such is incongruent with the law.

"But it's not the law. In the law, there is no prohibition. I think the IRR is an encroachment of the law. Even a resolution is not a law. The resolution is just created by your Board and now you have heard from the stakeholders in line with their request to improve their curriculum, the exam is very important to them," Gatchalian said.

The senator said his committee will let the PRC Board for Professional Teachers discuss the said request of stakeholders so that a clear provision for such may be made. — BM, GMA News