By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
In the wake of the report of the Philippine Statistical Authority that there are 18.9 million high school graduates who are functionally illiterate, Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara issued a statement declaring that the Department of Education (DepEd) will not allow any child to be left behind in reading and comprehension skills. In a later statement, Angara claimed that the agency has no policy sanctioning mass promotion but acknowledged the need to reform its practices and its system of incentives so that the mass promotion practice will be avoided.
Seizing on the promises of Angara, at least 50 of the teachers who reacted when the statements were posted in his personal Facebook page “Sonny Angara” and the official Facebook page of the DepEd “DepEd Philippines” pleaded for the restoration of the “No Read, No Move Policy.” It was clear that the teachers were referring to the traditional “No Read, No Move Policy” as some of them used the Filipino verb “ibalik” or return or restore in English. The word is inappropriate in the case of DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, the DepEd’s “No Read, No Move Policy,” because as shown in the letter to the editor “DepEd Order No. 45: The acid test of Angara’s intent to stop mass promotion” in the May 16, 2025 issue of this paper, the agency has never enforced the policy.
Also, some of the teachers who asked Angara for the enforcement of the “No Read, No Move Policy” specified in their comments that the policy be applied to Grade 1 learners and two others related that the policy was still in place when they started teaching in Grade 1 in the 90s.
The distinction between the traditional “No Read, No Move Policy” and DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, is that the former sets the deadline for the learning of reading in Grade 1 while the latter, in Grade 3.
The comment “Ibalik ang no read no pass system. Pakinggan ang hinaing ng mga guro!” made by a senior high school teacher from Region 7 in the DepEd Philippines page garnered 283 Likes while the comment “Strict Implementing ‘No Read, No Comprehension No Pass.’ Lessen paperwork. Mass promotion should be stopped” in the Sonny Angara page earned 359 Likes. The profile photo of the author of the second comment has the words “2025 Brigada Eskwela” in the background.
The clamor of the teachers proves the following: First, the DepEd does not require the ability to read for the promotion of learners to any grade which explains the inundation of the elementary and secondary levels with reading laggards. Second, there was a time Filipino schoolchildren all learned to read in Grade 1 because of the strict implementation of the old “No Read, No Pass Policy.” Third, many teachers believe that the best chance for all Filipino public schoolchildren to learn to read at the prescribed time is to extract their and their parents’ full cooperation in the endeavor through the threat of their having to repeat the grade in case of failure to do so. They also believe that the policy is the most effective way of reversing the illiteracy epidemic unleashed by mass promotion on the country’s public schools.
Several of the teachers said that the policy will force lazy and irresponsible pupils to take their education seriously.
However, the teachers may be in for a heartbreak. After the DepEd stubbornly refused to apply DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002, which only requires learners to know how to read by Grade 3 for more than two decades, it would be naïve to expect the agency to all of a sudden begin enforcing the policy which sets the deadline for the learning of reading in Grade 1 or two grade levels earlier.
The teachers should just petition Congress to pass a law institutionalizing the traditional “No Read, No Move Policy” so that thenceforth, the DepEd will be left with no choice but to enforce it thereby once again ensuring that all Filipino public school learners obtain basic literacy in Grade 1. (Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer June 25, 2025 issue.)**
