SunStar: Ifugao’s low literacy rate worries education exec

Ifugao’s slow improvement in literacy rate vis-à-vis its fast population growth has become a major concern for an education official in this province. Sun Star Baguio reported on Saturday that Ifugao Schools Division Superintendent Estela Cariño said that there had been little improvement in the province’s literacy rate despite interventions done by the education department. She said that based on the 2000 census of the National Statistics Office (NSO), there are 22,558 illiterates in the province. Cariño said this number slightly fell by 6 percent in 2005 based on the data of the Regional Development Council. Although the RDC data still needed validation, Cariño said this indicated that more interventions have to be done to improve literacy in Ifugao. Basing computations on Cariño’s report, this means that from 2000 to 2005, there were only 270 people yearly who were added on the list of literates in Ifugao. According to Census 2000, simple literacy means that persons who are older than 10 years have the capability to write. Data from the NSO showed that Ifugao’s population in 2000 was 161,623. This grew by 14 percent to 184,553 in 2005 based on projections made by the Commission on Population. If Cariño’s data become conclusive, this will mean that Ifugao’s 14 percent population growth in five years will far outpace its literacy growth rate of only 6 percent for the same period. Government data also showed that the Cordillera Administrative Region of which Ifugao is a part, had a simple literacy rate of 86.4 percent in 1989 and 88.8 percent in 1994. The Philippine literacy rate stands at 92.28 percent based on Census 2000. The National Capital Region has the highest rate of 98.14 percent, followed by the Ilocos Region with 95.23 percent and Central Luzon with 94.8 percent. -GMANews.TV