Samar schools consistent strong performers in NAT

Public schools in Eastern and Northern Samar have been consistently performing well in the yearly national achievement test (NAT) being administered to assess competencies of public school students, the Department of Education (DepEd) noted.

DepEd said that a review of the March 2007 NAT results performance among provinces showed that five of the 10 top schools nationwide came from the two provinces within Region 8.

Three schools identified as Bobon National High School, which ranked first; Hilabaan National High School, which ranked second; and the Taft National High School, which ranked seventh; were all from Eastern Samar.

Two schools from Northern Samar were the San Isidro National High School, which ranked fifth; and the Mapanas Agro-Industrial High School, which ranked eighth.

Despite the strong performance of the Northern and Eastern Samar schools, DepEd noted that it was the Caraga Region that ended up as the top performer in the NAT by region.

The NAT was administered in March by DepEd’s National Education Testing and Research Center to second year high school students.

DepEd Assistant Secretary for Plans and Programs said that the NAT allows DepEd “to look into the best practices of the top performing schools for duplication by other schools whenever appropriate.”

Other schools in the first 10 were the Mainit National High School in Surigao (third), Caraga Region; Surigao State College of Technology in Surigao del Norte (fourth) also in Caraga Region; Tococ National High School (sixth) in Pangasinan, Region 1; Don Esteban Nolasco Memorial National High School (ninth) in Cebu, Region 7 and the Anibongan NHS-Lianga NCHS Annex (tenth) also in Surigao del Sur, Caraga.

More schools from Region 8 entered the picture when the list was stretched to the top 20. This included the Lawaan National High School in Western Samar, Maydolong National Agricultural School in Eastern Samar, Jiabong National High School also in Western Samar, Victoria National High School in Northern Samar and Malinao Integrated High School in Eastern Samar.

Eleven out of the 20 top schools which performed well in the 2007 NAT came from Region 8.