Every child a reader! Hopefully

The 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) estimated that 18.9 million Filipinos were functionally illiterate. For a few days, FLEMMS enjoyed front-page coverage, mainly because some media accounts mistakenly read the number as referring to senior high school (SHS) graduates. The error suggested that most respondents passed through 10 to 12 years of schooling without learning to read and write.

Since it enrolled over 90 percent of basic education students, the Department of Education (DepEd) got the blame. Unfairly. FLEMMS surveyed the 10-64 age group of about 85 million, not the SHS students, who then numbered less than 9 million. But earlier, Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests, reinforced by a 2022 World Bank report that 90 percent of middle-school-age children were illiterate, had already prompted DepEd plans to raise functional literacy (FL) levels with programs like Bawat Bata Makababasa (Every Child Can Read).

The 15-year-old students taking Pisa tests were clearly within DepEd’s domain. They had posted distressing test results. In the 2018 and 2022 Reading Tests, our students placed dead last among 79 countries and then 75th of 81 participants. Despite its seven-point gain in 2022, our 347-score remained at 1A, the lowest level of Pisa’s FL scale and below the minimum proficiency score of 407. For its population, FLEMMS reported a nearly 80 percent FL rate. For DepEd’s market, Pisa estimated that about 80 percent in 2018 and 75 percent in 2022 missed the FL mark. By Pisa standards, these presumably Grade 9 students would struggle to understand written forms, public messages, or dosage instructions printed on medicine packages.

For context, FLEMMS was an instrument that respondents could seek help with in completing. The 2024 survey questions were in English, accompanied by a Tagalog translation. Pisa was a monitored, graded test taken in English, neither the mother tongue nor the home language of most Filipinos. We know, even without Pisa, that English proficiency has been declining in the last 50 years. Broadcast and social media, and even congressional hearings, now use mainly Filipino or Taglish, if not other indigenous languages, to be understood by a bigger audience.

Pisa administers the tests in the language used as a medium of instruction (MOI) in schools. It cautions countries that the test language, if not the main communication tool of students, can affect comprehension and reduce test results. But it took DepEd’s advice that English was an official MOI and properly used for the 2018 and 2022 exams.

Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh students took the 2009 Pisa exam in English, which was attributed to their low performance. These Indian states suspended further Pisa participation until they could address the issue of test language. They have not yet rejoined the test. Multilingual countries, like Lebanon, Luxembourg, and the Spanish Basque region, are beginning to give students the option to take the test in the language they know best.

Given the global experience, Pisa decided to offer this year the optional foreign language assessment (FLA) to evaluate ability in reading, speaking, and listening in English. Over 20 countries signed up for the 2025 FLA, reflecting the importance they gave to the learning of English as a global language. But they used their languages in the Pisa tests. They placed priority on their students achieving functional literacy in their languages first, before pushing them to learn a second language. As Unesco had recommended, this is a better policy than forcing students to navigate two or three languages simultaneously, the situation faced by many students in the multilingual Philippines.

Former DepEd secretary Sara Duterte passed on the opportunity to participate in the FLA, a more worthy project than those that landed her in an impeachment case. The FLA would have shed more light on the merits of prescribing English for Pisa. It might also yield insights on the usefulness of the english proficiency test (EPI). In 2024, EPI evaluated 2.1 million test-takers in 116 non-English speaking countries and regions.

Available online for free, EPI attracts adult, internet-using learners, mainly from urban areas. In 2024, the Philippines ranked 22nd in the world and 2nd in Asia behind Singapore. Despite dismal ratings in international assessments, EPI performance suggested that the country retained an English environment still robust enough to provide a solid base for learners with the interest and the will to improve their proficiency in the language.

EPI results are not representative of the Philippine population. But English remains a competitive advantage we should not lose. Functional literacy, however, demonstrated in Pisa tests, takes priority over English, second-language proficiency. Forget the acronym and focus on the DepEd goal: Bawat Bata Makababasa. More easily achieved first in the languages the children know best.