EDITORIAL — Literacy crisis

Study after study reaffirms what has become obvious in the past years: Philippine education is in crisis, and the situation continues to deteriorate.

The latest study is the one conducted last year by the Philippine Statistics Authority. The findings of the PSA’s 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey or FLEMMS, which were released last month, were dire: 90 percent of Filipinos have basic literacy, while only about 70 percent are functionally literate.

In actual numbers, those percentages out of the country’s current population of nearly 116.8 million are alarming, particularly the 30 percent who are functionally illiterate.

With the approval of the PSA Board, the 2024 FLEMMS revised the operational definition and methodology for measuring the two types of literacies. Basic literacy now refers to the ability to read and write a simple message, and to compute or perform basic mathematical operations. It is measured from age five and older.

Functional literacy, computed from ages 10 to 64, refers to the ability to read, write, compute and comprehend. As defined by the PSA, “functional literacy includes higher level of comprehension skills, such as integrating two or more pieces of information and making inferences based on the given information.”

FLEMMS findings showed that out of the estimated 103.46 million Filipinos ages five and older, 93.07 million have basic literacy. Illiteracy was highest among those ages five to nine.

Among the 85 million Filipinos aged 10 to 64, only 60.17 million are functionally literate. That means about 15 million Filipinos who can read and write but lack higher level comprehension skills.

The FLEMM findings reflect the results of the first two times when the country participated in the Program for International Student Assessment. The PISA results showed Filipino 15-year-old students placing at the bottom in mathematics, science and reading comprehension.

The Philippines is still awaiting the results of its third participation in the PISA, administered this year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. No one is expecting a significant improvement in the performance of the country.

This literacy crisis makes millions of Filipinos vulnerable to fake news, disinformation and populism, unable to make informed choices during elections. This in turn affects the quality of governance and national development.

The deterioration in literacy pulls down national competitiveness and derails progress. Various sectors have been sounding the alarm even before the pandemic. Yet the government has failed to give the problem its due attention, with the Department of Education even seeing billions from its budget this year being diverted to the congressional pork barrel. Perhaps the PSA findings will give policy makers a sense of urgency in addressing what should be considered a national emergency.