Performance of Public and Private Elementary Schools in the Cavite National Science High School (Regional Science High School) Entrance Examination for School Years 2017-2020

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Cavite National Science High School, the Regional Science High School (RSHS) of CALABARZON, offers the RSHS curriculum with enriched Science and Mathematics subjects. RSHS Entrance Examination focuses on assessing Mathematics, Science, and Communication Skills of Incoming Grade 7 students. Applicants must belong to the upper 20% of the Grade VI graduating class with no grade lower than 80% in English, Math, and Science with the general average not lower than 85% and recommended by their respective school principals (Unnumbered Regional Memorandum, October 2018). This study has been conducted to determine the performance of public and private elementary schools in the Regional Science High School Entrance Examination for School Years 2017-2020.

METHODS

This study falls under descriptive research. The data were gathered from the records of Cavite National Science High School's RSHS Entrance Examination applicants and passers for the last three years, specifically, the school year 2017-2018, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. The percentage of applicants and passers from public and private elementary schools for the last three school years were computed to assess the performance of both schools.

RESULTS

Private elementary schools from different municipalities in Cavite and other provinces have a 43% passing rate for School Year 2017-2018 while public elementary schools have a 23% passing rate in the same school year. For School Year 2018-2019, 51% from the private elementary schools passed the RSHS Entrance Examination while 42% of students from public elementary schools did. Out of the 431 applicants for School Year 2019-2020, 41% passers came from the private elementary schools and 35% came from the public elementary schools. Based on the total number of test takers from public and private schools and getting the percentage of passers, private schools have better performance than public elementary schools.

DISCUSSIONS

RSHS Entrance Examination focuses on assessing Mathematics, Science, and Communication Skills of Incoming Grade 7 students. The results showed that private elementary schools have a higher percentage of passing than public elementary schools with a 20% difference in SY 2017-2018, 9% difference in SY 2018-2019, and 6% difference in SY 2019-2020. Based also on the results, there is a decrease in the difference in percentage of passers from private and public elementary schools in the last three school years.