Nearly 19 million Filipinos who finished junior and senior high school in 2024 “cannot read and comprehend a simple story,” according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Based on data presented by PSA during the Senate education panel’s hearing on April 30, a total of 18.96 million junior and senior high school completers last year are considered “functional illiterate.”
“Meaning they graduated from our basic education system, but they cannot read, they cannot understand, and comprehend a simple story,” said Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, basic education committee chairperson.
The number comprised 21 percent of the total junior and senior high school graduates nationwide in 2024.
Functional literacy is defined by PSA as the ability to read, write, compute, and comprehend. Basic literacy refers to being able to read and write with understanding and perform basic arithmetic.
“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,” Gatchalian said.
“[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 further said. IMT
