By Estanislao C. Albano Jr.
In 2006, then Education Secretary Jesli Lapus already saw the writing on the wall on the reading abilities of Filipino schoolchildren. He wrote in the proposed Department of Education (DepEd) FY 2007 budget presentation that the pre-test of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory for SY 2004-2005 showed that 1.67 percent of Grade 3 pupils were non-readers, 52 percent were frustration level readers with only 29.52 percent and 16.5 percent at the instructional and independent reading levels, respectively. “Poor reading skills of pupils affect learning in all subject areas,” he had warned.
In the same document (See “Education For All: A Functionally-Literate Philippines!”), Lapus prescribed the following remedy for the problem: “Focus on reading, esp. in Grades 1-3 to build foundation skills for learning how to learn; scale up Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP); implement policy of ‘no promotion beyond Grade 3 for non-readers.’”
Apparently, Lapus was not aware that the establishment of the Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP) in 2001 was the direct cause of the unprecedented emergence of non-readers in Grade 3. With its “no promotion beyond Grade 3 for non-readers” policy (DepEd Memorandum No. 324, series of 2004), the ECARP effectively superseded the time-honored “No Read, No Move” policy under which no Grade 1 pupil could be promoted to Grade 2 unless he could read. While the old policy was in place, there were no non-readers in Grade 2 but apparently, Lapus did not know this thus, he ironically recommended the strict enforcement of the new policy which had caused non-readers to pop up in Grade 3.
In fairness to Lapus, even if vastly weaker than the “No Read, No Move” policy, the new policy could have fended off the reading crisis because cases of illiteracy would have been confined only to the first three grades. The country’s learning poverty or the portion of 10 year-olds who cannot read and understand simple texts would also be significantly lesser than the current 90.9 percent as 10-year olds are in either Grade 4 or Grade 5 and therefore are already readers.
But since the DepEd did not enforce and is not enforcing the ECARP reading deadline, unlike in 2006 when Lapus sounded the alarm, the proliferation of non-readers is no longer just limited to Grade 3 but had escalated to high school. Here are researches proving the existence of non-readers in high school conducted by DepEd teachers under the auspices of the agency:
• “Team Teaching and Morphological Awareness: Its Impact on the Reading Enhancement and Vocabulary Acquisition of Grade 7 Non-Readers in the Quinapondan NHS”
• “The Children Who Were Left Behind: Lived Experiences of High School Non-Readers”
• Research on the Project READ (Reading Enhancement and Development) reading program of the Cabuyao Integrated National High School in Cabuyao City, Laguna. The purpose of the Project READ is “to lessen, if not totally eradicate the number of identified non-readers and struggling readers among grade 7 students.”
• Research on D’ CURE (Devoting Care to Uplift Reading Efficiency) reading program of the Luis Y. Ferrer Jr. West National High School in Trias City, Cavite. The researchers wrote that the program begins with a pre-need assessment in reading for incoming Grade 7 students to detect the approximate number of non-readers among them.
The first two researches were funded under the 2020 Basic Education Research Fund of DepEd-Region 8 while the last two were included in the Book of Abstracts of the CALABARZON English Language Conference held by the DepEd-Region 4-A in 2021.
Considering the fact that the reading crisis would have been avoided had the DepEd been enforcing its “no promotion beyond Grade 3 for non-readers” policy, Lapus and successors Armin Luistro, Leonor Briones and Sara Duterte should be called to explain why they refused to implement the policy. The issuance by DepEd-Cabuyao City of Division Memorandum No. 537, s. 2023, reiterating the “No Read, No Pass Policy” barring the promotion of non-readers on September 15, 2023, proves that neither is Duterte enforcing the crucial reading policy. (Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 21, 2024)**
