8 Mangaldan teachers in NAT leakage probed
MANGALDAN—Scandal rocked the National Achievement Test (NAT) for Grade VI pupils last week when eight public school teachers from this town were caught red-handed with reproduced copies of the test booklets.
The eight teachers are all advisers of Grade VI students of the Mangaldan Central School.
Police authorities, acting on a tip off, raided the school on March 12 and seized the reproduced copies of the test booklet suspected to have been distributed to pupils taking the exam.
Superintendent Mateo Casupang, chief of police of Mangaldan, said the reproduced test booklets were taken from the teachers inside the faculty room of the Mangaldan Central School in the afternoon of March 12. The seized copies were turned over to DepEd.
Incensed by the incident, Department of Education Regional Director Ligaya Miguel and Pangasinan II Division Schools Superintendent Veraluz Raguindin, together with Atty. Maria Paz Rivera-Basangan, regional legal counsel, rushed to Mangaldan on March 14 to investigate the alleged irregularity.
The two education officials said all those responsible for the scandal will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
“We will not allow anyone who participated in this alleged leakage or cheating to go unpunished,” said Miguel, clarifying that
Miguel said the possession of the test copies constituted a breach of security in a DepEd-supervised national examination.
The names of the teachers involved are still being withheld held pending the outcome of the investigation.
Miguel said the investigation will look into the possibility of more teachers and officials involved in the leakage.
Students of the Mangaldan Central School, however, were still allowed to take the NAT exam as there was no immediate evidence that they actually received copies of the leaked test booklets.
The NAT is a nationwide test to measure the competencies of graduating elementary pupils who will go to high school.
Miguel said that it is unfortunate that this incident happened in Region 1, specifically Pangasinan Division II, considering that the area, though never on top of the nationwide annual exam, was neither at the bottom.
“We are maintaining a position of integrity. We are keeping the values of integrity here,” she stressed.—LM
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