By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Retired University of the Philippines-Diliman professor and Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Randy David: Philippine public school system was once Southeast Asia’s “model of public education” and the best students in public high schools gave the best from the elite private schools a run for their money (“Education: Mirror of a deeper crisis,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 4, 2024).
Broadcaster Sheryl Cosim: In the 80s, private school contestants in academic competitions feared public school bets as the latter were so good (“BBM Podcast Episode 2 (Part 2) Education, Rice, and Security,” Presidential Communications Office website, June 18, 2025).
It can be gleaned from the recollections of David and Cosim that the quality of education offered by public and private schools in the past were at par. Thus since generally, private schools have successfully resisted mass promotion, the current gap in the competence of their students indicates the extent of the devastation wrought by the DepEd’s mass promotion practice in the past two decades.
In the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM), the Philippines placed fifth in Reading, fourth in Writing and fourth in Mathematics. Had the scores of the public schools been the basis for the country’s ranking, the Philippines would still be fifth in Reading, fourth in Writing but would slip to fifth in Mathematics. Had the scores of private schools been the basis, the country would have been at third place in all the domains (SEA-PLM 2019 National Report of the Philippines, pages 11, 18, 23, 38).
In the 2022 PISA, public school students obtained an overall score of 340.66 points which was 12 points or 3.40 percent short of the national average. On the other hand, private school students scored 412.33 points which is 59.67 points or 16.91 percent more than the national average of 352.66 points. The national average placed the country at 77th of 81 countries. Had only public schools taken the test, the country would have placed 80th. Had only private schools represented the country, the Philippines would have been at 51st. Private schools outperformed public school by 71.66 points or 21.03 percent which translates to 29 rungs in the rankings.
In Reading, private schools outscored public schools 416 to 333 points for a difference of 83 points or 24.92 percent. Their scores placed private schools at the level of the 49th ranked country in Reading and public schools at the level of the 80th or second to the last country. They are separated by a gulf of 31 rungs.
The devastating effect of the DepEd’s policy allowing reading laggards to progress through the grades up to Grade 12 unmolested is fatal to the country’s basic education given the proven high correlation between reading competence and overall academic performance.
The OECD paper “Reading for change: Performance and engagement across countries” states: “Reading is a prerequisite for successful performance in any school subject. By incorporating the three literacy domains of Mathematics, Reading and Science, PISA 2000 provides information on the relationships between the domains. The correlation between the Reading and Mathematics scores in PISA is 0.81, and the correlation between Reading and Science scores is 0.86.”
The results of both the PISA 2018 and 2022 cycles strikingly confirm this OECD finding. First, locally, the regions which topped Reading also led in the overall standings and on the other end, the weakest in Reading landed at the bottom of the overall rankings. In fact, in the PISA 2018, NCR, Region 7 and Region 4-A were the top 3 in that order in both in reading and in the overall standings while on the other extreme, Region 9, CARAGA and Region 12 were the bottom 3 in that order in both lists (“PISA 2018 National Report of the Philippines,” pages 19, 31, 40).
The phenomenon was repeated in 2022. NCR, CAR, Region 4-A, Region 3 and Region 11 were the top 5 in both Reading and overall rankings with the first three regions finishing in that order in the two lists. Just like in 2018, Region 9, CARAGA and Region 12 were the bottom 3 in both Reading and overall rankings (“PISA 2022 National Report of the Philippines,” pages 21, 34, 46).
Second, internationally, the correlation also holds. In the PISA 2018, of the top 15 countries in Reading, only two missed the top 15 overall. The top 5 participants namely China, Singapore, Macao, Hong Kong and Estonia ranked in that order in both lists. On the other end, only two countries in the bottom 15 in Reading escaped the bottom 15 in the overall rankings (PISA 2018 Worldwide Ranking–Average Score of Mathematics, Science and Reading, FactsMaps).
In 2022, only two countries in the top 15 in Reading missed the top 15 overall list while in the bottom 15 list, only one country finished higher than the bottom 15 overall (PISA 2022 ranking summary, Wikipedia; PISA Scores By Country, Data Pandas).**To be continued
