Rizal’s grades revisited
Former Sorsogon 1st District Rep. Salvador H. Escudero III opposed the addition of two years to our 10-year basic education. Escudero was on the congressional committee on education, whose opposition was economic, arguing that K-12 was an added financial burden on parents. As one of the countries without K-12 at the time, Filipinos would be ineligible for work abroad because they lacked two years of basic education. After much opposition, K-12 came to be in 2013 as Republic Act No. 10533 (Enhanced Basic Education Act). Current assessment reveals that K-12 did not live up to its promise of preparing students for the workforce or college.
Nine in 10 Filipino students were functionally illiterate; they can read but don’t understand what they are reading. The Programme for International Student Assessment scores in 2019 and 2024 show that about eight in 10 Filipino students don’t have the minimum proficiency in math. National Achievement Test results are more distressing. It is bad enough that only 30.5 percent of students met proficiency levels at Grade 3. By Grade 5, proficiency levels declined to 19.56 percent, and by Grade 12, proficiency was down to 0.4 percent! The Second Congressional Commission on Education reported that “as much as 88 percent of students across all grade levels are not ‘grade-level ready’ in reading.” The usual culprits are: congested or nonexistent classrooms; availability of electricity, water, internet connection, and textbooks; class disruptions due to weather or noneducational activities; congested curriculum; overworked and underpaid teachers; mass promotion (students move up grade levels despite lack of proficiency); stunting; etc.
Knowing that the K-12 system needs a lot of improvement, we are moving from the frying pan into the fire with the proposal to further decongest the already gutted college general education curriculum. General education is seen as excess fat that has to be trimmed and thrown back into K-12 so that students can graduate and join the workforce after three years of college instead of four. I’m sure there is good intention in all of these reforms, and I will wait for further discussion on them to form an informed opinion on the matter.
All of the above made me look back on Jose Rizal’s basic education at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, which was, contrary to popular belief, not to be confused with the Ateneo de Manila University of today. When he graduated at the top of his Ateneo class in 1877 with sterling grades, remember that those were high school, not college or university grades.
From the documents in the Ateneo and University of Santo Tomas archives, we know that there were 12 boys who graduated and acquired their Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1877: Fernando Canon, Santiago Carillo, Justiniano Jao-Jocco, Cesario Jevellanos, Enrique Lete, Jose Luna, Gonzalo Marzano, Modesto Peña, Jose Resurreccion, Jose Rizal, Moises Santiago, and Pedro Viejo. From this cold, seemingly trivial list, we can make some observations. First, in the official list, all students carry two surnames in the Spanish manner: paternal surname followed by the maternal. Today, our maternal surname is usually reduced to an initial and is considered our “middle” name. We are taught that Jose used the surname “Rizal” instead of “Mercado” to avoid being connected with his elder brother Paciano who was dangerously associated with the martyred Fr. Jose Burgos. In his school records, Jose used both surnames Rizal and Mercado, interchangeably or together. He was also admitted into Ateneo despite some infirmity (some sources say he didn’t make the height requirement), through the intercession of a family friend, Manuel Xerez Burgos, nephew of the ill-fated Father Burgos.
From the 1877 graduating class, three were named Jose. All of them pursued university degrees in medicine. Furthermore, Jose Luna was the younger brother of the painter Juan Luna, while Jose Resurreccion was the younger brother of the painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Rizal would meet and be friends with these painters in Paris. Rizal is said to have graduated at the top of his class with the weighted grade point average of “Sobresaliente” (excellent), equivalent to today’s “A” or, depending on your institution’s grading system, the highest grade can either be “4” or “1.”
From the list, three boys graduated with “Aprobado” (Good), equivalent to today’s “B.” These were Carillo, Lete, and Luna. Nine other students graduated with “Sobresaliente.” So how did Rizal graduate at the top of his class if there were eight classmates with the same grade? He had seven awards as follows: first prize in: philosophy, drawing, conduct, as boarder, and “Aplicacion,” and an “Acesit” (honorable mention) in physics and chemistry. That he won first prize as the best boarder and the most well-mannered is one thing. When I asked around about Aplicacion, I learned that this is the student who does things over and beyond class. Like erasing the blackboard or carrying the teacher’s things. My students understand this as Rizal being “sipsip” or the “Teacher’s Pet.”
It is crystal clear from Rizal’s grades that there are other indicators than high grades, proficiency, or competency that make an outstanding student.
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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net
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