By Estanislao C. Albano Jr.
The results of the Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) conducted by the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) in 2024 particularly in the case of basic education age Filipinos are way off the mark. Please consider the following:
First, the survey says the 5-9 age group has a basic literacy rate of 78.0 percent. The estimate appears inconsistent with the data cited during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Basic Education last September showing that 38 percent of Grades 1 to 3 learners are non-readers. Note that the illiteracy data does not include Kindergarten where most, if not all learners, could not yet read. Based on the same Grades 1 to 3 illiteracy data, the 20.1 percent illiteracy rate estimate for the 5-9 age group is also an understatement.
Second, the FLEMMS also found that 89.9 percent of the 10-14 age group have basic literacy. This does not tally with the World Bank (WB) report that as of 2022, the country had a learning poverty incidence of 90.9 percent. The WB defines learning poverty as the portion of 10-year olds who cannot read and understand simple texts.
It also contradicts the finding of the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) survey that 27 percent of our Grade 5 students were practically illiterate.
Third, the FLEMMS estimated that the 15-19 age group has a functional literacy rate of 76.5 percent. That is the exact opposite of the finding of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2022 that 76 percent of our 15-year old students fell below Level 2 in the reading proficiency. Given the following description from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Level 2 in reading is the threshold of functional literacy: “At Level 2, students begin to demonstrate the capacity to use their reading skills to acquire knowledge and solve a wide range of practical problems.”
The 76 percent functional illiteracy rate established by the PISA 2022 is not yet the end of it because per the 2020 census of population, the 15-19 age group accounted for 15.6 percent of the 11 M out of school of youth population then.
With the stark variance of the results for 5-9, 10-14 and 15-19 age groups with existing empirical data on the literacy levels of Filipino students specially those coming from the SEA-PLM and the PISA, apparently, the PSA just relied anew on the self-reporting of the literacy status of other members of the household by just one member and did not really made an effort to ascertain the actual literacy status of each of the school age individuals enumerated. How can the FLEMMS fulfill its purpose of gathering data “as bases in determining the state of literacy in the country” when obviously the results paint a picture of the literacy situation that’s too good to be true?
The urgency for the PSA to conduct a functional literacy survey which truly reflect reality cannot be overemphasized as even until now that the Philippines has become a veritable education basket case what with its staggering learning poverty incidence and its bottom finishes in international students assessments, there has never been an effort to accurately capture and report the actual literacy state of the country’s school age population thanks to the obscurantism of the DepEd and the haphazard functional literacy surveys of the PSA.
If the PSA wants to finally collect data that could provide “a quantitative framework that will serve as basis in the formulation of policies and programs on the improvement of literacy and education status of the population,” all it needs to do is develop a simple tool to determine the literacy levels and have its data collectors administer it to the individuals to be enumerated. It should do away with asking a household member the literacy status of other members of the household because as already noticed in the 2019 FLEMMS, the procedure leads to the inflation of the basic and functional literacy rates of school age groups and thereby, to results that do not serve the purpose of the survey. (Published in the April 25, 2025 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)**
