Functionally illiterate

Long before the pandemic, people have already been lamenting the progressive deterioration in the quality of Philippine education.

The inability to grasp the magnitude of the problem could partly be a reflection of this problem.

But more than this inability, we are cursed with a relentless string of selfish, crooked public officials whose political and family fortunes are anchored on keeping the majority of Filipinos illiterate, poor and dependent on government handouts.

The results of the 2024 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) should not be a big surprise. The FLEMMS findings tracked the outcomes of the first two instances when our country participated in the Program for International Student Assessment.

Those two PISA rounds showed 15-year-old Filipino high school students ranking at the bottom among peers from about 70 other participating countries in terms of competencies in mathematics, science and reading comprehension.

High-level comprehension is what sets apart functional from basic literacy, under the new definitions of literacy as measured by the PSA. On top of basic literacy – the ability to read, write and perform basic math – the functionally literate can apply these skills to daily life and practical uses.

At least the basic literacy rate in the country is at 90 percent. But that still leaves 10 percent of our people who are, literally, no read, no write. And a functional literacy rate of only 70 percent translates into about 15 million Filipinos lacking the comprehension levels needed for the nation to survive, thrive and excel in a highly competitive global environment.

Also, the FLEMMS findings showed the highest illiteracy rate among ages five to nine. These are the most critical formative years. Children left behind in learning competencies at this age range will find it tough to catch up with peers, much less compete. Going into adulthood, the country will have a lost generation of illiterates.

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Comprehension is needed to understand how taxes are collected and where they go, or why political dynasties are like cancer in a democracy. Fifteen million people lacking functional literacy will keep sending populist buffoons and thieves to high office, over and over but expecting different results, in the popular definition of insanity. They will then wonder why the government (mis)managed by their election preferences is so messed up.

The low level of literacy shows in the quality of Pinoy entertainment, and even in the inability to grasp concepts such as defensive driving, which compromises road safety.

Apart from being held back in realizing their full potential, the functionally illiterate also miss out on many of the joys of a high level of comprehension. They are unable to experience, for example, the satisfaction of reading a well written novel, where many aspects cannot be fully captured in a movie even at the hands of a multi-awarded director.

In other countries, the PSA findings would have prompted public officials to see a state of national education emergency requiring urgent, decisive action.

But our approach to education is focused on populism: not on raising the quality to world-class standards, which our neighbors are doing, but on providing everything for free. This shouldn’t be bad, if free universal education from K-12 to college translates into quality services.

Instead, free has meant substandard, with resources further strained by corruption and the latest bane, the institutionalized thievery of the national budget for education.

In the light of the FLEMM findings, that congressional thievery, along with the corruption attributed to the apparent misuse of Department of Education funds when Vice President Sara Duterte was DepEd secretary, are criminal betrayals of public trust.

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Education is supposed to level the playing field in a country with a yawning income gap. Except for the few thousand low- or middle-income students who manage to enter the University of the Philippines annually, however, quality education in this country is a luxury only the privileged class can afford.

The miniscule fraction of the population controlling power and wealth – including many of those who stole this year’s education budget – can afford to send their children not only to expensive private schools, but also to elite universities overseas with stratospheric tuition.

Meanwhile, in our underfunded, crowded public schools, even if tuition is free, there are many parents who worry about where to get money for their children’s daily commute to school, and for the regular contribution to the school feeding program (those cartons of milk interspersed with bowls of arroz caldo aren’t completely free).

We can’t even decide which medium of instruction to use in our schools. The mother tongue experiment is in limbo. In large communities with a melting pot of dialects, school children were too embarrassed to admit that the “mother tongue” chosen as medium of instruction was not the mother tongue used in their households. Unable to understand their lessons, there were kids who simply dropped out of school.

Substantial investments in education contributed to the rise of Asia’s tiger economies. Our neglect of the sector surely contributed to our progressive slide in regional standing, from the days when we were second only to Japan. China became an economic (and now military) powerhouse because of heavy investments in human resource development.

Our idea of human resource development is exporting our people to all parts of the planet, so that their massive remittances to their families can produce positive Philippine economic growth figures. This allows the political class to say that the system ain’t broke and nothing needs fixing, so the rotten status quo can be maintained.

Concerned sectors have been sounding the alarm on education for many years now. But unfortunately, the consistent response of politicians, who thrive on keeping the masses illiterate, hungry, impoverished and dependent on patronage, has been, “what, me worry?”

The fact that many of these politicians will win handily on May 12 says a lot about Filipinos’ level of literacy.

It’s a national crisis. We must respond accordingly.