Capstone-Intel Corporation Urges Serious Attention to Alarming PISA Test Results for Filipino Students
Research firm Capstone-Intel Corporation has raised concerns over the recent results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test, which ranked Filipino students among the bottom five in creative thinking. The firm emphasized that these results should serve as a basis to improve the education system to ensure graduates are globally competitive. From June 18 to 25, Capstone-Intel conducted sentiment analysis on publicly available Facebook pages. The analysis revealed that the ‘Sad’ reaction dominated at 46.9%, followed by ‘Haha’ at 24.4% and ‘Like’ at 23.1%. The report covered up to two petabytes of available Facebook data. “These reactions from Filipinos on social media provide valuable insights into the public sentiment regarding the PISA test results in creative thinking,” said Ella Kristina Coronel, research director at Capstone-Intel Corporation. She added that developing creative thinking is now more complex due to massive digital acceleration, AI, and social media. The PISA creative thinking test assessed the capacity of students from 81 countries to generate original and diverse ideas in simple imagination tasks or everyday problem-solving situations. Students from Singapore, Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, and Finland scored highest in creative thinking. Conversely, Albania, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Morocco, and the Dominican Republic were the lowest-performing countries. Coronel noted that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, which includes these PISA results, dominated public discussions on Facebook with up to 104 daily posts during the analysis period. There were 359 posts on PISA, generating 32,232 comments, 50,127 shares, and a total of 128,514 reactions, resulting in an engagement score of 66,201.6. The OECD report highlighted that effective classroom pedagogies are critical for developing students’ creativity. Students who scored high in the PISA tests reported that their teachers encouraged them to come up with original answers and allowed them to express ideas in school. Additionally, active participation in school activities such as art, drama, creative writing, or programming classes at least once a week is associated with better performance in creative thinking. “We have to take the PISA results as one of the metrics in evaluating and elevating our standards because creativity cannot be replaced; it is innate among individuals,” Coronel said. She stressed that developing students’ creativity is a responsibility shared by parents, communities, and schools, adding: “It takes a village to raise a creative child.” The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assesses the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students in mathematics, reading, and science, exploring how well students can solve complex problems, think critically, and communicate effectively. The Philippines participated in PISA for the first time in 2018. By comparing results internationally, policymakers and educators in the Philippines can learn from other countries’ policies and practices. In the latest PISA test on creative thinking, only 3% of 15-year-old Filipino students matched the average creative thinking skills of students in top-ranked Singapore, highlighting significant deficiencies in the creative thinking abilities of Filipino students. From June 18 to 25, Capstone-Intel conducted a social media scan of publicly available Facebook pages, covering up to two petabytes of data. The analysis identified 359 posts on PISA with 32,232 comments, 50,127 shares, and a total of 128,514 reactions, yielding an engagement score of 66,201.6. The PISA topic received significant engagement on social media, with ‘Sad’ reactions leading at 46.9%, followed by ‘Haha’ at 24.4%, ‘Like’ at 23.1%, ‘Love’ at 4.3%, ‘Wow’ at 1.1%, and ‘Angry’ at 0.2%. These reactions provide valuable insights into public sentiment regarding PISA during that period. The highest ‘Sad’ count was from a post by Philstar.com, garnering 21,304 ‘Sad’ reactions with an engagement score of 27,145.9. The post highlighted that the Philippines ranked among the bottom four in the latest PISA test on creative thinking, with only 3% of 15-year-old Filipino students matching the average creative thinking skills of students in top-ranked Singapore. Between June 19 and June 22, 2024, the top five Facebook posts discussing the Philippines’ performance in the PISA creative thinking assessment attracted significant engagement. Philstar.com’s June 19, 2024, post had the highest engagement score of 27,145.9, highlighting the low percentage of Filipino students matching Singapore’s creative skills. Other notable posts included Rappler’s and GMA News’ reports, which also emphasized the deficiencies in Filipino students’ creative thinking abilities. The PISA assessment measures students’ capacity to generate, evaluate, and improve ideas in four areas: creative writing, visual expression, scientific problem-solving, and social problem-solving. This provides governments with data to help students and young people reach their full potential in our changing economies and societies. Based on the 2022 PISA results, the Philippines ranked sixth lowest among the 81 participating countries and economies, with Filipino learners continuing to lag in reading, math, and science.
Capstone-Intel calls DepEd to act on ‘education crisis’; adds need to provide ‘better initiatives, platforms’ to uplift teachers and students
Capstone-Intel Corporation is calling on the Department of Education (DepEd) to step up and act on the befalling education system of the country following its recent social listening report on World Teachers’ Day that reveals “education crisis” as the most widely-engaging topic across all social media and non-social media platforms ahead of the month-long celebration. Capstone-Intel is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency. A recent social listening report from Capstone-Intel Corp. revealed that the topic “education crisis” reported an interaction share of 77.6 percent across all social and non-social media platforms, which indicates that audiences are primarily talking and interacting on the topic. “This data illustrates the perception on the state of the education crisis in the country which was related to educational crisis. This would mean that the government should give its full attention to provide accessible and quality education for all,” said Atty. Nick Conti, Capstone-Intel Corporation’s Chief of Public Affairs. The social listening report was conducted from August 1 to September 8, 2023, which covers key events in the education sector particularly Brigada Eskwela, the opening of classes, and the launch of the annual World Teachers’ Month celebration. The report did not specify the primary issues of education in the country but recent data from DepEd shows Philippine classroom shortage has risen to 159,000. Conti drew attention to a critical issue, and it is reassuring to observe that the government has recognized the urgency of the matter. According to DepEd, the projected shortfall of classrooms for the upcoming year can be addressed by allocating close to P400 billion, which is nearly 7 percent of the proposed P5.768-trillion National Expenditure Program for the year 2024. This significant amount is necessary to ensure that sufficient classrooms and facilities are provided to accommodate the needs of students and educators. “We understand that the lack of classrooms can lead to overcrowding, making it difficult for students to focus and learn effectively. The education system is complex, and there are many factors that need to be considered to ensure that it is effective,” Conti added. The public affairs chief also believes that the development of an education system involves more than just having enough funds. “Aside from funding, students should receive high-quality education, which is the most critical of all. As new technologies such as AI continue to emerge and the education landscape evolves, it is crucial that teachers have equal and inclusive opportunities for training, professional development, and access to technology,” Conti noted. “A well-developed education system is an essential component of a successful economy. Education is the key to unlocking the potential of the population, and a highly educated workforce can lead to increased productivity, innovation, and economic growth. Education is not only necessary for individuals to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the workforce, but it also contributes to the development of a robust, dynamic economy,” he added.
‘Education Crisis’ Tops Analytics Ahead of World Teachers’ Day Celebration
A recent report from private research and intelligence company Capstone-Intel Corporation revealed that the phrase “education crisis” recorded a whopping 77.6 percent of interaction shares across all social and non-social media platforms, expressing concern about the worsening education system of the country. Capstone-Intel is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency. Recently, the Department of Education was embroiled in dissensions after Vice President and Secretary of Education Sara Duterte requested P150 million in confidential and intelligence funds amid the brunt borne by public school teachers during the Brigada Eskwela this year. Earlier this year, DepEd once again made the headlines after it said that the education sector is exploring other options to address the classroom shortage, which is by far, the annual problem faced by public schools along with the other endless lists of issues. Methodology Capstone-Intel Corp. utilized all publicly accessible data across all social and non-social media platforms in the country in order to determine the magnitude of the issue ahead of the celebration of World Teachers’ Day. The study was conducted from August 1 to September 8, 2023, in order to cover the highlights of the issue from Brigada Eskwela, the budget hearing, up to the opening of classes leading to the start of the month-long celebration of Teachers’ Day. Topic interactions Exploring all the data gathered, the agency noted that the “education crisis” has been the highest topic being talked about during the duration of the study, tallying a total of 50 percent share of voice and 77.6 percent interaction share. Share of voice is an indicator that measures the audience’s awareness while interaction share is the number of interactions it generated across all platforms. Other topics that made it to the duration were: the Filipino teacher who became the first Filipino instructor to teach the Filipino language at Harvard with a 50 percent share of voice and 22.4 percent interaction share and “teacher support,” which is about the approval of 5,000 non-teaching posts to support teachers in providing quality education. It received an 18.7 percent share of voice and a 28.7 percent share of the total number of interactions. The discussion on developing effective communication skills in the classroom for students with special needs obtained a share of voice equal to 20.2 percent and a share of interactions roughly equal to 8.8 percent. Online presence, sentiments Capstone-Intel also identified the magnitude of the teachers’ online presence by assessing their online mentions across all social media platforms and other sources. According to the report, blogs attracted the most engagement, with 42.4 percent of all mentions, followed by news (31.0 percent) and web (15.6 percent). Only a small number of people mentioned other websites, including videos (0.9 percent), Facebook (2.1 percent), and Twitter (6.9 percent) for the said topic, it said. At the same time, it also highlighted the online sentiments of teachers which had over 83.2 percent neutral sentiments, 14.8 percent positive sentiments, and 2 percent negative sentiments.
Sentiment Analysis on Deped’s Overall Online and Search Engine Performance
This study follows the recently held budget briefing for 2023. One of the main standpoints that evolved into controversy was the nature of the confidential budget that was allotted to the Department of Education (DepEd). Capstone-Intel Corporation has conducted an online social media sentiment scan of DepEd spanning the timeframe of July 1, 2023 to August 14, 2023, to determine the overall sentiment of the public that made the issue controversial in the first place. Capstone-Intel is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency. Background of the issue The DepEd has had its fair share of being placed under the microscope for its recent controversies. Based on the results, the top stories revolve around the K-10 curriculum change, how the department managed the return to face-to-face classes, and the “confidential” nature of the budget itself. In July, the education department completed the review of a K-10 curriculum and stated that it will be launching the new paradigm weeks after that initial announcement. This would then be gradually released and implemented over time and would be known as the “Matatag” curriculum. Another contention that placed DepEd in the spotlight would be their execution of the return to onsite classes that was stipulated in DepEd Order No. 034 dated July 11, 2022. Schools were required to comply and had until November of the previous year to fully adjust. This predated, however, the lifting of the public health emergency status by President Marcos on July 21, 2023. Knowing this, the initial announcement of DepEd at the time was met with friction and sparked a lot of public discussion. Finally, it was stated in the national budget for the fiscal year 2024 that there would be a proposed P150 million in confidential and intelligence funds allocated for the DepEd. However, what was notably present was the fact that there was an overall lack of a breakdown of these funds, stating that it was for the “interest of confidentiality.” Methodology In order to thoroughly study this subject, Capstone-Intel committed to utilizing all publicly available data across all social media platforms from July 1, 2023, to August 14, 2023, using the agency’s advanced analytic tools. The data was gathered from online users who posted their sentiments online during the duration of the study. The insights garnered also originated from the inferences made after analyzing the patterns found within the data. Reaction analysis After studying the performance of the keywords “Education” and “DepEd” together on Facebook, it yielded a total of 753,191 reactions. 46.1 percent are Facebook Likes, 34.8 percent are Facebook Hearts/Loves, 34.8 percent are Facebook Love, 16 percent are Haha reactions, and the last 1.6 percent fall under Facebook Wow. This result emphasizes that the audience generally maintains a more neutral response to the issue at hand. Sentiment Analysis In terms of the general sentiments on “DepEd” and “Education”, the split is much more obvious, with 52.2 percent of sentiments seeming to lean on the positive end of things, while the other 47.8 percent are more on the adverse side. This data comes from the various social media accounts that Capstone-Intel was able to scan and sift through. Among the positive authors, the most prominent sources of posts come from either Tiktok or Facebook, accounting for almost 70 percent of the positive mentions. Conversely, Facebook also serves as a source of negative sentiments against DepEd. X follows right after. Among the related topics that are connected to the aforementioned keywords, there is a general neutral perspective on each of these topics. However, it is important to note that “Teaching Growth” and “School Opening” are among the topics with the most positive sentiment. Keyword Insights Capstone-Intel also gathered data on DepEd’s search traffic to understand the insights of online visitors about the department. In terms of search intent, the variations to the phrase “Department of Education,” which include additional words like “logo,” “documents,” “Philippines,” and “learning management system,” all garner generally similar results. The data shows that the phrase on its own garnered around 41 percent of zero-click searches. This means that 41 percent of users mainly searched for this phrase in order to be redirected to the actual website itself. Half of the top keyword searches had a number of zero-click searches that indicated the potential intent of the user was to navigate the internet to reach the DepEd website. On the other hand, searches that included the word “logo”, were deemed to be more informational, which means users aimed to merely view the logo itself rather than navigate to the official website. Confidential controversy Of the top sources for the mentions, four of the nine revolve around the confidentiality issue of the budget for the Department of Education. Vice President and current Secretary of Education Sara Duterte asserts that the budget remains confidential since it is “intertwined with national security.” This is also related to the story of the emphasis being placed on intel gathering for the majority of the proposed 2024 budget. However, it should be noted that in terms of specific topic interactions for this, the budget ranks only 12th out of the top 14 topics interacted with under the phrase “Education DepEd.”
Capstone-Intel Examines DepEd’s Online Presence: How Visible is the Education Department on Facebook?
The Department of Education (DepEd) has been one of the most crucial government agencies in the country. Not only does it ensure that educational institutions are equipped with quality instruction management, but they are also in charge of disseminating policies that help schools improve their way of teaching and honing the youth. In line with this, Capstone-Intel conducted an examination of DepEd’s online performance in order to evaluate the visibility of the education department on social media, particularly on Facebook. Capstone-Intel is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency. Methodology From July 1, 2023 to August 14, 2023, Capstone-Intel utilized its advanced social media data analytic tools in order to gather and analyze all publicly accessible information from Facebook users in the country. Data revealed that there was a total of 6,845 posts related to DepEd with 107,098 comments, shared 252,365 times, a reaction count of 753,191, and an engagement score of 338.393.9. It also added that the users have provided a cumulative total of 753,191 reactions on Facebook, which was used as a parameter to measure their sentiment toward the education department. These reactions consist of 46.1 percent of Facebook Likes, 34.8 percent of Facebook Loves, 16.0 percent of Facebook Haha, and 1.6 percent of Facebook Wow. This suggests that the audiences are, for the most part, responding to the information with responses that can be classified as “neutral.” Top posts for DepEd On the other hand, Capstone-Intel also found out that even though DepEd reached a significantly high engagement score, its Facebook page only reported a single top post during the duration of the study. The most engaging post from DepEd Philippines, which is about the department’s advisory on the opening of classes for the school year 2023-2024, garnered a total of 47,488.2 engagement scores. This was followed by a blog post from “Utoy Potato” which received a total of 29,472.6 engagement scores about a hacked DepEd page. Raffy Tulfo in Action came in third with a 26,244.3 engagement score, which tackled the prohibition of “class contributions” among students in public schools. The fourth and fifth spots are for GMA News, which collected an engagement score of 7,335.3 and 7,275.4 for its stories about the implementation of the K-to-10 curriculum, respectively. Top sources for DepEd Meanwhile, Capstone-Intel reported that GMA News topped the list of sources for DepEd with an engagement score of 377.7 while the DepEd Bukidnon page came next with a 152.4 engagement score. At the same time, INQUIRER.net placed third in the list of top sources for DepEd after recording a 148.6 engagement score. This data only demonstrated that social media users are still getting the bulk of the information they would like to know about the education department from news sites rather than the Facebook pages of DepEd and its attached schools.
