TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Feeling vindicated by the disastrous performance of the Philippines in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) where it landed No. 79 out of 79 countries in Reading Comprehension and No. 79 overall, residents of this city clamoring for the investigation of the problem of non-readers in high school by Congress are urging immediate action.
Rev. Luis Aoas, one of the concerned residents, said that with the PISA results clearly showing that Filipino school children struggle with reading, there is no reason whatsoever on the part of the officials to sit on the requests for a probe of the problem.
He said the bottom finish of the country in Reading Comprehension did not surprise the group because they are aware that for more than a decade now, the reading competence of our students has been on an alarming decline and children who could hardly read are not expected to do well in a reading test.
He added that the weakness also affected the performance of our children in math and science because struggling readers could hardly be expected to understand the questions.
Signed by 15 residents and emailed on September 3, 2019, the letter to the Basic Education Committee of the Lower House urged the immediate conduct of a probe considering that no less than Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), the state think tank, has confirmed the existence of non-readers in high school in its report “Pressures on Public School Teachers and Implications on Quality” released last February.
The petitioners attached the PIDS report and media accounts on the phenomenon including the link of the GMA 7 documentary “Pag-asa sa Pagbasa” which featured the roomful of Grade 7 non-readers and frustrated readers at the Sauyo High School in Novaliche, Quezon City.
“The allegations find credence in the plunging results of National Achievement Tests (NATs) particularly in Grade 6 because naturally, school children who cannot read or could barely read cannot comprehend the questions,” they wrote explaining that Grade 6 NAT national average mean percentage score (MPS) for 2018 was 37.44 which they said is at the verge of falling into the “very low mastery” level.
“Noteworthy also are the following facts: the score is less than half the 77 MPS target for 2016; and the takers were the first elementary graduates under the K-12 curriculum,” the concerned citizens said.
On October 22, 2019, the group wrote a similar request to House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano after the official announced the intent of the House to review the K to 12 Curriculum.
They expressed the hope that in the review, “the House will find out how come the reading crisis took a turn for the worse after the introduction of the new curriculum because there are now estimates that 10 percent of incoming Grade 7 students in public schools are either non-readers or are frustrated level readers.”
They cited the observation that the curriculum does not emphasize reading because of the reduced time allocation for the teaching of the skill and “the virtual decommissioning of procedures which in the past effectively aided the teaching of reading such as memorization, frequent spelling drills and theme writing.”
“What motivated us to take this move is the awareness that we learned to read in English in Grade 1 and we see no reason why any normal Filipino child should not be successfully taught the same skill in Grade 1,” the 12 signatories said.
On November 18, 2019, in a letter signed by 98 residents and addressed to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the group urged the Senate specially the Basic Education Committee which Gatchalian chairs “to immediately confront the reading crisis gripping the public education system.”
They cited the admission of Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado
San Antonio that the DepEd is aware of the presence of non-readers in high school.
“In a letter to us dated August 8, 2019 a copy of which is enclosed, San Antonio wrote: “For example, the existence of nonreaders in high school, which you raised in your letter, does not go unnoticed by the Department. In fact, alleviating such predicament right on the early stages of learning has been a foremost concern,”” they wrote.
They enumerated the following reasons why the Senate “or any other concerned authority” should address the problem:
* The presence of non-readers and frustration level readers in the secondary indicates that Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP), Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) and the K-12 itself are failing.
The group explained: “The intent of the ECARP is to make every child an independent reader by Grade 3 and the Phil-IRI, a nationally validated reading proficiency assessment tool, is intended to strengthen the implementation of the ECARP. Implemented properly therefore, these programs would ensure no non-reader will get past Grade 3. Under DepEd Order No. 021, series of 2019, setting forth the policy guidelines for the K-12, reading in English is included among the competencies to be attained in Grade 2.”
* In private schools, children still learn to read in Grade 1 or even in the Kindergarten and in the public schools, majority are competent readers when they enter Grade 4. There is a need to find out why the DepEd cannot successfully teach reading to all mentally normal children at the grade prescribed by the curriculum when it was able to make them all read in Grade 1 in the past.
* There are no indications whatsoever that DepEd intends to solve the problem without outside intervention and supervision because in its pronouncements on the review of the K to 12 Curriculum, it never mentioned reading, has not acted on the PIDS recommendation to stop the practice of sending non-readers to high school and had done absolutely nothing about the problem.
In a follow up letter to Gatchalian, the group said that the country cannot expect to do better in the PISA “if the true reasons for the deterioration in the reading skill level of our children are not ascertained first.”
Aoas said that during the last term, the Senate Committee on Education Chairman Senator Francis Escudero and several other senators were sent copies of media reports on the incidence of non-readers in high school but the chamber did not address the issue despite its conduct of a probe on the state of education then.
Aoas said that with the wake up call coming in the form of the dismal performance in the PISA, the group is hoping that senators will finally stop evading the problem.** Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.
