The Department of Education (DepEd) denied the existence of "auto-pass" or "mass promotion" practices among students, but acknowledged that certain practices may have pressured schools and teachers into promoting students.

In a statement on Wednesday, Education secretary Sonny Angara said that there is no policy on automatically passing students. However, he noted a mismatch between performance-based evaluation tools, citing that school success had been inadvertently based on student progression rather than competencies.

“When school-level success is measured mainly by how many students move up, and when teachers feel that their own evaluations and promotions depend on that too, then we can’t be surprised if the system bends in that direction,” Angara said. 

He further described mass promotion as a ‘silent norm’ in some areas. DepEd is currently reviewing its assessment and promotion standards to make student progression based on demonstrated learning outcomes. 

The reassessment is expected to have revisions on how student assessment, remediation are evaluated.