By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Without conducting an investigation on the report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) that 21 percent of all senior high school graduates are functionally illiterate, the co-chairmen of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) have already jumped into conclusions on what caused the fiasco and have offered their solutions.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, co-chair for the Senate, told the media that those graduates are the end results of the government’s long years of neglect of education. He said that lack of support and funding has weakened our education system. For his part, Congressman Roman Romulo, co-chair for the House, tagged the congested curriculum as the culprit claiming that the myriad subjects and competencies have “made school so difficult for students.”
Gatchalian forgot that the PSA study also found that in 2024, 79 percent of the senior high school graduates were functionally literate. If the education system is so weak to impart reading skills, how come almost four out of five are able to attain functional literacy through the same system?
On the other hand, Romulo denies the fact that private schools also use the K to 12 Curriculum but their students outdid the students of 32 countries including those of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia in reading in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Public school students were second to the last. It is clear the curriculum did not prevent our private school students from holding their own in reading in the PISA.
Both commissioners stressed that DepEd does not have a mass promotion policy but they admit the practice is happening on the ground. Gatchalian even included the practice of passing and letting reading laggards to graduate as one of the factors which contributed to the mess uncovered by the PSA. Curiously, however, Gatchalian did not bat for ending the practice of mass promotion.
On the other hand, Romulo shot down the suggestion to only allow students to graduate from high school when they are ready declaring that retention is not the solution as it may lead to students dropping out which, according to him, is even a far worse situation. Without presenting proof that functional illiterate students bear no responsibility for their plight, Romulo said that they are not to blame and it’s the system that has failed them. He insisted that the solution to the problem is to decongest the curriculum.
The stance of Romulo and Gatchalian on the practice of mass promotion and the palliatives they propose show they have forgotten the EDCOM II finding that the 2024 National Learning Camp (NLC) failed because attendance was not mandatory and 90 percent of those needing intervention skipped the activity. If only the EDCOM II put two and two together, it would be clear to them that those students did not cooperate because they knew they will pass anyway even if they do not attend the NLC which was what happened.
Their position also proves that they ignore the fact that the main reason private schools outdo public schools in international assessments is they are not dumb enough to mass promote their students.
The EDCOM benchmarked with Vietnam but does not accept that the key to that country’s success in education is it does everything to ensure that all students are grade-ready before promoting them including retaining laggards who still fail in the summer remedials. Mass promotion is no-no to Vietnam. In 2015, it cracked down on the practice on the basis of just six cases of high school students with knowledge well below their grade level and has never let up on the war against the practice since then.
By contrast, confronted with over a million functional illiterate high school graduates, leaders of the EDCOM II tell the country there are other means of dealing with the pernicious practice before even asking the DepEd to explain how the disaster happened when the K to 12 Curriculum provides that learners be functionally literate by Grade 6.
**
