Country: Philippines                          
Title:    Revised Policies on Pupil Attendance
Author:            Onofre D. . Corpuz, Minister, MEC.  
Institution:       MEC
Citations:         MEC Order No. 25, s. 1978 and MEC Order No. 53, s.
                   1982.  
Descriptors:       Dropping out; Teacher responsibility.  
Full text: 1.     In line with the objectives of the Program for
  Decentralized Educational Development (PRODED) to raise the
  achievement levels of pupils and to increase the participation and
  survival rates, the following policies on pupil attendance are
  hereby issued:

  a.  A teacher shall exert all efforts to make a potential school
  leaver, i.e., a pupil who has been absent for five (5) consecutive
  school days, stay in school, and to retrieve a potential dropout.

  b.  In appraising the performance of teachers, the efforts of the
  teacher in making potential school leavers stay and in retrieving
  school dropouts shall be considered.

  c.  Schools are encouraged to adopt formal and nonformal education
  alternatives, e.g.

  (1)  Assisting children who are frequently absent to catch up with
  their classmates through self-instructional modules to forestall
  dropping out;

  (2)  Utilization of innovative approaches piloted in Project Stay
  and Balik-aral;

  (3)  Explore the utilization of the Philippine Educational
  Placement Tests (PEPT) to retrieve dropouts.

  d.  All records of pupil attendance and non-attendance shall be
  made in MECS Form I using the symbols, E for entered, when a pupil
  enters for the first time during the school year, 1 for absent, L
  for left, R for re-entered, and D for dropped.

  e.  A pupil who has been absent and marked 1 for ten (10)
  consecutive School days shall be marked left L on the eleventh
  school day opposite his name.

  f.  When L has been entered opposite the name of a pupil no further
  absences should be marked against him, unless he returns and an R
  has been entered in the record.

  g.  A pupil marked L may be marked dropped D only after it has been
  established and confirmed by the parents, physician or nurse, and
  the child himself that he is physically and mentally incapacitated
  to go back to school.

  2.     Teacher shall account for children who drop out and/or
  repeat grades by indicating in the MECS Form I, School Registar,
  what actions have been initiated to forestall the dropping out of
  the pupil.

  3.     This Order supersedes all policies on pupil attendance.

  4.     It is requested that the contents of this order be taken up
  with teacher and administrators in order in order to obviate any
  further misconceptions and malpractices in marking and reporting
  pupil non-attendance.