About 1.8 million Grade 9 students from public and private schools nationwide will take the National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) on March 1 and 2, 2017.
The Department of Education (DepEd), through the Bureau of Educational Assessment (BEA) will lead the administration of the annual NCAE, with the assistance of personnel from the schools divisions nationwide.
The NCAE basically aims to determine the learner’s aptitude and occupational interest on any of the Senior High School (SHS) tracks. Occupational interest is the learner’s preference in specific vocations and career categories.
The two-day exam also aims to guide the conduct of career guidance at the school level and to ensure the development of skills and competencies required for the world of work and career choices.
This is also to provide basis for profiling learner’s aptitude in the four SHS tracks such as Academic, Technical-Vocational-Livelihoo d, Sports, and Arts and Design.
Under the Academic track are the following strands: Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM); Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS).
The career assessment covers three domains such as General Scholastic Aptitude (GSA), Occupational Interest Inventory (OII), and Aptitude for SHS tracks.
The GSA refers to the student’s scientific ability, reading comprehension, verbal ability, mathematical ability and logical reasoning ability.
The OII pertains to the checklist of occupational interests which provides an assessment on preferences for comprehensive career guidance.
The Aptitude test measures the innate ability of the student to succeed in the SHS tracks.
This year’s career assessment is pursuant to DepEd Memorandum No. 16 s. 2017.