The Department of Education (DepEd) is the biggest agency in the Philippine bureaucracy to implement the performance-based bonus (PBB) scheme. This Policy Note revisits the PBB program implementation through a process evaluation. It finds, among others, that PBB had a positive effect on quantitative performance measures but not on qualitative performance measures. Moreover, some key performance indicators, such as achievement test scores and dropout rates, were misreported. With these problems, the study urges the DepEd to exact greater accountability from the teachers who are directly interacting with the students and to develop a mechanism to address problems on low or unacceptable teacher performance. It also calls for the strengthening of the grievance process, whereby legitimate grievances related to the PBB are addressed early on at the school level without having the need to elevate them to the higher level. Further, it recommends assigning a school-level focal person to improve dissemination of the PBB guidelines to teachers and facilitate coordination of activities related to PBB implementation and compliance.
