Why DepEd’s literacy crisis can’t be solved by a bigger budget
The Department of Education (DepEd) has recently appealed for additional funding to address the country’s growing problem of functional illiteracy. The call sounds legitimate at first glance. After all, no one can dispute that millions of Filipino learners continue to struggle with basic reading, writing and numeracy skills.
Yet this plea raises a serious contradiction that cannot be ignored: DepEd remains one of the government agencies with the lowest budget utilization and the most questioned implementation record. If billions of pesos already allocated are left unspent or misused, why should the public and Congress believe that pouring in more money will lead to better outcomes?
The issue of functional illiteracy is real and urgent. Based on DepEd’s own policy brief released in September 2025, only about 70.8% of Filipinos aged 10 to 64 are functionally literate under the new, stricter definition of literacy that includes comprehension, numeracy and application of skills. This means nearly one in three Filipinos cannot fully understand written texts or use basic numeracy in daily life despite having attended school.
Such a finding confirms what many teachers have observed: that years of schooling do not necessarily translate into learning. Addressing this crisis requires systemic interventions. But the agency’s request for additional funds must be viewed through the lens of credibility, governance, and institutional efficiency.
DepEd already enjoys the single largest share of the national budget. For 2025, it was allocated approximately P793.7 billion, up from the previous year.
Yet reports from the Commission on Audit and the Department of Budget and Management show that it has struggled to spend its resources efficiently. Delays in procurement, lapses in project implementation and unresolved disallowances continue to plague the agency.
Billions remain unobligated or unliquidated even as classrooms crumble, learning materials are insufficient and teachers dip into their own pockets to buy supplies. The climate of unresolved disallowances has also created a chilling effect in schools, where personnel hesitate to innovate for fear that their decisions will later be “disallowed,” forcing them to repay expenses from their own pockets.
The so-called high budget utilization rate that DepEd cites—often above 90%—is misleading, as it usually reflects obligations rather than actual disbursements or completed projects. In many cases, funds are “utilized” on paper but not yet translated into delivered outputs. The recent controversies surrounding undelivered laptops and overpriced equipment demonstrate how budget obligations can inflate performance statistics while leaving schools empty-handed.
If the problem is ineffective spending, then the solution cannot simply be more spending. Before asking for additional funds, DepEd should first account for the billions that have already been allocated. It must show not just how much of the budget has been spent but also what learning outcomes have improved as a result.
For instance, the Early Language, Literacy and Numeracy (ELLN) program, which directly targets early-grade reading and numeracy, was allotted only about P106 million for 2025—barely a fraction of the department’s total budget. Yet there is little publicly available evidence on how this modest funding has been used or what measurable results it has achieved.
Similarly, the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) program, launched to help learners recover from pandemic-related learning losses, remains underfunded and unevenly implemented across regions. DepEd now seeks an additional P134.5 billion “wish list” for 2026 to strengthen ARAL and expand its literacy interventions. But without a clear assessment of past performance, such requests risk perpetuating the same cycle of inefficiency.
The call for additional funding also reveals a deeper structural flaw in how education policy is managed in the Philippines. Successive administrations have treated education budgets as political trophies rather than instruments of reform.
Large appropriations are announced each year as proof of commitment to education, yet little attention is given to the mechanisms of implementation. Funds are often centralized, with decision-making concentrated in the national office while regional and school-level units navigate layers of bureaucracy to access them.
Procurement rules designed to prevent corruption end up causing paralysis, with months of delay in purchasing simple learning materials. Teachers and principals, who are closest to the learners, have little control over the resources meant to improve instruction. The result is a paradox: enormous budgets that barely reach the classroom.
None of this means that additional funding is unjustified. The scale of the literacy crisis, the impact of inflation on educational materials and the continuing classroom backlog all require sustained investment.
But money alone will not cure functional illiteracy. Without reform in governance, monitoring and teacher capacity building, increased allocations may only expand inefficiency. The challenge is not only financial but institutional.
DepEd must prioritize transparency and results-based management. It should publish detailed program-level expenditure reports showing the link between spending and outcomes in reading, writing and numeracy.
External evaluation mechanisms involving universities and independent education researchers can help assess which interventions work and which do not. Funding should be performance-based and directed toward schools and divisions that demonstrate measurable improvement rather than absorbed by administrative overheads.
There is also a need to rethink how literacy is understood and taught. Functional literacy cannot be achieved through textbook distribution alone. It demands well-trained teachers who can teach reading comprehension, problem solving and critical thinking in meaningful contexts.
Many teachers themselves lack adequate preparation in literacy pedagogy due to the weak link between teacher education institutions and classroom realities.
If DepEd is serious about eradicating functional illiteracy, part of its additional funding should go to partnerships with teacher education institutions for sustained professional development, mentoring and research on literacy instruction. These are long-term investments that yield results only if accompanied by accountability and pedagogical reform.
In the end, DepEd’s plea for more funds should not be dismissed outright but neither should it be granted uncritically. The public deserves transparency on how previous budgets were used and why outcomes remain poor despite massive spending.
Congress, the Commission on Audit, and civil society must demand detailed explanations before approving any budget increase. Functional illiteracy is a moral and social crisis that must be solved, but it cannot be solved by a bureaucratic system that mistakes expenditure for progress.
Reform must also extend beyond structures and budgets and include the difficult work of changing teaching cultures that shape everyday practice in schools. Real reform begins not with another billion pesos but with the courage to confront inefficiency, to empower schools and to ensure that every peso spent truly translates into learning for every Filipino child.
Leah Amor S. Cortez ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the Faculty of Science, Technology, and Mathematics and executive director and provost of the Philippine Normal University South Luzon. Levi E. Elipane ([email protected]) is a professor and deputy dean of the College of Advanced Studies of the Philippine Normal University. Arlyne C. Marasigan ([email protected]) and Allen A. Espinosa ([email protected]) are professors and fellows at the Educational Policy Research and Development Office. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Philippine Normal University.
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