By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
The most significant and saddest part of the dismal RP results in the 2019 South East Asia–Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) (“Solon seeks reforms in basic education curriculum,” December 5, 2020) is the finding that 27 percent of our Grade 5 pupils fell under “Band 2 and below” in the SEA-PLM reading proficiency scales. The SEA-PLM report explained that at that reading level, pupils can only “match single words to an image of a familiar object or concept.” The report showed as sample of the reading tasks for the pupils the illustration of a wheel along with four words including “wheel.” By stark contrast, SEA-PLM 2019 defines reading literacy as “understanding, using and responding to a range of written texts, in order to meet personal, societal, economic and civic needs” explaining that it “uses the term ‘reading literacy’ instead of ‘reading’ to emphasize that reading skills go beyond decoding words to applying reading comprehension, knowledge and understanding in everyday life.”
The finding exposed Department of Education’s brazen efforts to cover up the non-reader mess which has already affected our high schools specifically the agency’s following lies:
Lie 1: “We have no non-readers, only students who struggle to comprehend what they read.” This is the drift of DepEd Memorandum No. 173, series of 2019, “Hamon: Bawat Bata Bumabasa” which the DepEd is now pointing to as its answer to the reading crisis as it is purportedly aims to make all school children proficient readers “in their grade level.” It makes it appear that all that needs to be done is to enhance the reading skills of the learners. It glosses over the presence of students who could not read at all mentioning the word “non-readers” only once in the memorandum and only in passing.
In reaction to news reports that there are 70,000 non-readers in Bicol last February, Secretary Leonor Briones spewed these doublespeak among others: “Not knowing how to read is different from being illiterate;” “do not know how to read” did not mean no read, no write;” and “Pupils’ problem not literacy but reading comprehension” – (“Pupils’ problem not literacy but reading comprehension” DepEd,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 18, 2020). How could somebody be a reader and only has comprehension problems when he could only recognize isolated words and with the aid of drawings at that?
Lie 2: “DepEd does not have a mass promotion policy.” Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla denied over the “TV Patrol” news program of the ABS-CBN on December 19, 2019 that there is a mass promotion policy and that schools may just be misinterpreting their mandate relative to the policy which gives failing students the chance to catch up on their failed subjects through remedial classes during summer. She said that some teachers may not be teaching the failing students during summer because they do not get compensation for the additional work. Granting but not accepting that indeed teachers are to blame for the promotion of the undeserving in our public schools, how could the DepEd not know and not be doing anything to stop the promotion of more than one quarter of the school population who happen not to know how to read right under its very nose year after year?
Lie 3: Maintenance of the Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP) and the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI). The ECARP is the DepEd flagship reading program “ which aims to make every Filipino child a reader and a writer at his/her grade level” while the Phil-IRI pursues the DepEd “thrust to make every Filipino child a reader.” DepEd Memorandum No. 324, series of 2004, “Administration of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory” states: “1. In support of the Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP), the Department of Education has issued the following policies to strengthen the teaching of reading: a) DECS Order No. 34, s. 2001 “Two Books a Year Per Student,” and b) DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 “Reading Literacy Program in the Elementary Schools.” The first policy requires all pupils to read at least one (1) book in the vernacular and one (1) book in English. The second enforces the policy that every child should be a reader by Grade 3 and that no pupil shall be promoted to the next higher grade unless he/she mastery of the basic literacy skills.”
If the ECARP and Phil-IRI are being carried out as intended, how could the SEA-PLM assessment test have uncovered that 27 percent of our Grade 5 pupils are illiterate? Apparently, the ECARP and the Phil-IRI are just smokescreens for the DepEd’s continued failure to teach our children to read.
In perpetrating all these lies on the country all these years, the DepEd has betrayed the mandates of the Constitution and the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 for the government to provide quality education” and “quality education that is globally competitive,” respectively, to Filipino children. The DepEd should also be held accountable for the disastrous results of sending non-readers and struggling readers to the 2018 PISA and the 2019 SEA-PLM. Had the DepEd known any better, we would not have embarrassed ourselves so thoroughly before the international community specially in the PISA where we could easily have avoided finishing last had all our examinees been able to read.
With the SEA-PLM uncovering that 27 percent of our Grade 5 pupils in 2019 were illiterates despite DepEd’s assurances to the contrary, we now know the worse enemy of Philippine education. Published in the Daily Tribune, December 12, 2020.**
