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To give due recognition to graduating students who have shown exemplary performance in their high school work, guidelines have been formulated for the selection of honor students.

The guidelines (see below) contained in the inclosure shall be implemented starting SY 1992-1993 in all public and private secondary schools.  Teachers, parents, and students must be given orientation on the scheme at the beginning of the school year.

Final selection and announcement of honor students should be made not earlier than thirty (30) days nor later than fifteen (15) days before the commencement exercises or graduation rites.

Protests filed ten days before the commencement exercises shall not be entertained.

It is desired that this Order be immediately disseminated to all concerned. All rules and regulations inconsistent with this Order are hereby amended and rescinded.

Adopted: 13 May 1992



GUIDELINES ON THE SELECTION OF HONOR STUDENTS
The designation “valedictorian”, “salutatorian”, and “honorable mention” shall apply to graduating honor students in all secondary schools.

There shall be one valedictorian and one salutatorian for all the graduating classes.  However, in case of a tie between two candidates, both may be declared valedictorians or salutatorians.

The number of students to be declared “honorable mention” in a secondary school shall be one percent (1%) of the total of graduating students.

Any member of the graduating class is eligible to be a candidate for honors if he meets the following requirements:

a. He must have no grade lower than 80 in any subject during his third and fourth years in any grading period as recorded in the student’s Forms 137 and 138-A.  In no case shall the student have a failing grade in any subject required by DECS, including non-credit subjects, in the first two curriculum years.

Teachers, students, and parents must be informed about this, at the beginning of the school year, to avoid having students disqualified from getting honors because of their failure to comply with this requirement.

b. He must have done the entire work of the third and fourth years in the secondary school where he is graduating.

c. He must have completed the curriculum within the prescribed length in years, i.e., within four consecutive years.

d. He must be an active member in at least two existing authorized student organizations or clubs during his third and fourth years in the school where he is graduating.

e. He must have conducted himself in conformity with the school rules, regulations, and policies.

The following criteria and the corresponding relative weights shall be used in determining the valedictorian, salutatorian and honorable mention awards:

a. Academic excellence …………….7points

Academic excellence shall be based on the general average of the grades of the graduating student in the last two years (third and fourth years) of schooling.  The final grades in the fourth year should be completed before the last three weeks of the school year, and should be based on the work done during the last grading period.

b. Performance in Co-curricular

Activities ………………………….. 3 points

Performance shall cover the achievements of the candidates for the last two years, including active participation in authorized student organizations or clubs, literary musical activities, athletics (school, provincial, city, regional, national and international levels), awards in recognition of the actualization of what the student learned from the school, travels in relation to school work, civic activities, membership in the barangay, researches, and other outstanding awards in athletics, school paper, and school band.  The rating shall be based on the combined assessment of all the third and fourth year teachers of the candidates.

Ranking of students for honors shall be based on the total weighted ranks, the computation (to two decimal places) for which is given below:

a. For academic excellence —

1. Compute the general average of the combined third and fourth year grades of the candidates;
   
   
2. Rank the candidates according to this average: and,
   
   
3. Assign weight to the rank by multiplying it by 7.
   

b. For co-curricular activities —

1. Get the composite rank (sum of all the ranks given by the raters) of each students;
   
   
2. Rank the candidates from the lowest to the highest sum; and
   
   
3. Assign weight to the rank by multiplying it by 3.

c. For final ranks —

1. Add the weighted ranks for (a) and (b); and
   
   
2. Rank the sums from the lowest to the highest.

d. Example^*

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^* Text available upon request at the Office of the National Administration Register (ONAR), U.P. Law Center, Diliman, Quezon City.