By Estanislao Albano Jr.
The gulf between the education systems of Vietnam and the Philippines is starkest in the lopsided performances of their students in reading literacy. In the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics, 82 percent of Vietnamese Grade 5 pupils reached the highest reading proficiency band versus 10 percent for the Philippines. In the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), 77 percent of their students attained the minimum reading proficiency level against our 24 percent.
The wide gap in the reading proficiency of the students of the two countries is hardly surprising because Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) endeavors to make learners read in Grade 1. The article “Beginning to Read in Vietnamese: Kindergarten Precursors to First Grade Fluency and Reading Comprehension” in the PMC website states: “According to the benchmarks outlined by the Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam, children by the end of first grade are expected to recognize all letters and rimes and to read aloud at a rate of 40-50 words per minute with appropriate phrasing, to answer basic comprehension questions, summarize the main idea and details of a story, and identify key features such as dialogue and characters’ actions.” Based on Vietnam’s pre-Covid-19 learning poverty rate of 2 percent and it’s impressive reading literacy performance in international assessments, the MOET is meeting the target.
On the other hand, apart from setting the target for all learners to be readers to Grade 3 which is two years later than Vietnam’s standard, the DepEd blatantly disregards its grade level reading standards inviting this unprecedented reading crisis. In a desperate bid to address the crisis, in what could be a first in the world, DepEd just set aside half a day each week for Grades 1-12 learners to, in the words of Education Secretary Sara Duterte, “do nothing but practice and learn how to read.”
Thus the recent study tour of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EdCom II), the body tasked to assess Philippine education and recommend needed reforms thereto, in Vietnam (“PH education body on study tour to learn from Vietnam,” News, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 3/22/24) could have been a golden opportunity to learn the secrets to competitive reading literacy.
Alas for the country, however, benchmarking on reading literacy was not in the declared purpose of the trip which was to “look at the areas of improving access, equity, and opportunity among learners; attracting and supporting qualified teachers; strategic use of its assessments; and its effective governance and ‘efficient financing’ of education.”
Apparently, EdCom II does not yet realize that it is no fluke that Vietnamese students do not only do well in reading but also in science and mathematics while Filipino students are miserable failures in all three domains. EdCom II does not yet accept the 2002 finding of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the body behind the Pisa, that there is a very strong correlation between reading competence and academic performance.
It is pathetic that although it is obvious, the EdCom II cannot see the fact that the results of both the 2018 and 2022 Pisa rounds startlingly confirm the OECD finding.
In 2022 Pisa, among the Top 15 countries in reading, only two countries were not in the Top 15 overall. Among those in the Bottom 15 in reading, only one escaped the Bottom 15 overall.
Among local regions, the Top 5 in reading namely National Capital Region (NCR), Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Region 4A, Region 11 and Region 3 also formed the Top 5 overall. NCR, CAR and Region 4A were also in the Top 5 in reading literacy and overall rankings in 2018. On the other end, Region 9, Caraga and Region 12 which were Bottom 3 in reading literacy and overall standings in 2018 repeated the performance in 2022.
The Pisa data and the contrasting basic education experience of Vietnam and the Philippines show that the latter can never kick off its education recovery unless it could make all its learners read starting in Grade 1 like the former does. (Published on April 5, 2024 in the Philippine Daily Inquirer)**
