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PSA: Over 18M high school grads don’t understand what they read


Over 18M Filipino high school graduates can't comprehend — 2024 PSA study

There are over 18 million junior high school graduates who are considered “functional illiterate” or those who have problems in comprehension and understanding.

This was revealed during the Senate basic education committee hearing on the results of the 2024 functional literacy, education and mass media survey (FLEMMS).

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, committee chairperson, disclosed the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data which showed that 79 million constituents were considered functional literate under the 2019 parameters of the study.

But with the PSA revising the new parameters to consider an individual as a functional literate under the 2024 FLEMMS, more junior high school graduates are now detected to be unable to comprehend.

In the FLEMMS that was conducted until 2019, a person is considered functional literate if he can read, write, compute, and comprehend, or at least high school graduate in the old curriculum or at least junior high school completer in the K to 12 curriculum.

But for the 2024 FLEMMS, the PSA has revised the definition of functional literate as someone who can read, write, compute, and comprehend.

“In the old definition… we have 79 million constituents who are considered functional literate. But in the current definition, which you removed high school and junior high school, the number of functional literacy or literate went down to 60 million constituents. So, that’s a difference of about 18.9 million,” Gatchalian said.

“So in other words, there are high school graduates and junior high school graduates who were in the old definition considered automatically as functional literate but in the new definition…they did not pass the new definition of functional literacy,” he concluded.

PSA Assistant National Statistician Adrian Cerezo agreed with Gatchalian’s observation.

“Accurate, sir,” Cerezo replied. “We note that there are actually a significant number who are passing or graduating but are not really functional literate.”

According to Cerezo, the 2024 FLEMMS was conducted among 572,910 individuals taken from 177,656 sample households throughout the country.

Gatchalian raised concerns that there were more than 18 million who were able to graduate in the basic education system despite not being able to comprehend.

“That's the problem of basic education because paano sila nag-graduate nang hindi sila functional literate? Iba ‘yung hindi pumasok eh, iba rin yung pumasok ka but naka-graduate ka but you’re not functional literate,” the Senate basic education committee chairman said.

(That's the problem of basic education because how can you graduate without being functional literate? It’s one thing that you went to school, it’s another thing that you went to school, you graduated but you're not functional literate.)

“[It] should not happen. No one should graduate in our basic education system, no one will graduate in our basic education system that will not be functional literate… DepEd should already be proactive in making sure that no one will graduate not being functional literate,” he went on.

Further, Cerezo disclosed the PSA’s findings that there are around 21% of senior high school graduates who are considered functional illiterate.

“That's quiet concerning. That means one out of five of our graduates cannot comprehend and understand a simple story and that’s something that we need to address,” Gatchalian replied.

The highest number of functional illiteracy rate was recorded in Region IX with 41% of their population or around 1,225,356 Filipinos there.

Broken down in provinces, Tawi-Tawi has the highest number of functional illiterate with 67% of their population or 218,000 Filipinos there.

It was followed by Davao Occidental with 53% or around 130,000 functional illiterates, Zamboanga del Sur with 49% or 399,000, Norther Samar with 48% or 236,000, Basilan with 48% with 150,000, Saranggani with 48% or 209,000, Western Samar with 46% or 283,000, Agusan del Norte with 44% or 135,000, Sultan Kudarat with 44% or 293,000, and Lanao del Norte with 44% or 240,000.  

Gatchalian also mentioned that there are approximately 5.8 million Filipinos who are not basic literate which means they cannot read and write with understanding, and compute.

For basic literacy, the highest number was recorded in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) with 16 percent of their population or around 582,000 Filipinos there who are basically illiterate.

The senator described the data in BARMM as a “staggering number.”

Like in functional literacy, Tawi-tawi has the highest number of basic illiterates with 36% of their population or 117,000.

This was followed by Davao Occidental with 23% of their population or 55,000, Basilan with 23% or 71,000, Northern Samar with 20% or 98,000, Saranggani with 18% or 77,000, Lanao del Sur with 17% or 155,000, Zamboanga del Sur with 16% or 128,000, Western Samar with 16% or 97,000, Sultan Kudarat with 14% or 97,000, and Maguindano del Sur with 13% or 64,000.

“In Tawi-tawi, if you want to bring businesses there, have meaningful livelihood programs, it’s very difficult if people cannot even understand or comprehend a simple story. So again, breaking the cycle of poverty is very difficult if we have problems with lietarcy both basic and functional literacy,” Gatchalian said.

The senator then urged the local government units to address this literacy problem with the help of the PSA’s FLEMMS study.

“We cannot just meet here in the room. We have to cascade this all the way to the provinces. Now that data is available per province, it’s important that we flag the local government units in that area to address illiteracy in their locality either by using their own resources or allocating national resources so that it can be augmented,” he emphasized.

“Definitely, we cannot just sit down and sleep well at night knowingly that we have constituents who cannot read write and compute. Because as long as there’s somebody who cannot read, write and compute, there will be poverty in our country. So we need to break that cycle of poverty by injecting education,” he added.

Cerezo agreed with Gatchalian and noted that intervention programs should be available, especially for working Filipinos who are still considered functional illiterate.

According to Cerezo, Secretary Sonny Angara has “took notice” on the numbers particularly on the illiteracy rate in BARMM when the 2024 FLEMMS was presented to the Department of Education.

DepEd chief education program specialist Rosalina Villaneza told the committee that they will be conducting assessment for the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (PHIL-IRI) in the next school year to address these concerns.

“We will be conducting beginning of school year assessment for PHIL-IRI which will guide us as to who are these learners who needs intervention,” she said.

“There is a need for us to train a reading teacher for secondary so that each of secondary school will have a reading teacher who will address the needs of these learners,” she added. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News

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