IN her press statement demanding an apology from the World Bank (WB) for its report on the Philippines' poor student achievement, which she claimed to have shamed and insulted the country, Education Secretary Leonor Briones alleged the report 'lacked historical context.' In her message acknowledging the apology of the WB, she referred to efforts being undertaken by the Department of Education (DepEd) and its partners 'to resolve the century-old issues plaguing the Philippine education system.'

Clearly, Secretary Briones is insinuating that the causes of the poor performance of current students cited in the report go back to the Thomasites. I beg to disagree. The utter and unacceptable failure of the DepEd to teach the most basic skills, especially reading, which has resulted in 80 percent of Filipino kids performing below their grade level as pointed out in the WB report reaches only as far back as the Arroyo era and worsening during the Duterte administration. I dare anyone, including Secretary Briones, to refute the following evidence:

1. A national reading profile data from DepEd published in the Unesdoc Digital Library shows that the national nonreader incidence in 2005 was 1.74 percent and 2.56 percent in 2006 ('The Philippines country case study' by Rhona Caoli-Rodriguez, 2007). On the other hand, the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) found that 27 percent of our Grade 5 pupils could not read based on the SEA-PLM definition of reading literacy ('SEA-PLM 2019 Main Regional Report').

2. Through its policy note, 'Pressures on Public School Teachers and Implications on Quality,' published in February 2019, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies urged the DepEd to stop sending nonreaders to high school.

3. In November 2019, DepEd issued DepEd Memorandum No. 173, series of 2019, urging the intensification of reading literacy advocacy in all levels of the agency. This was the first time DepEd broke its silence on the reading crisis. To date, at least seven regional offices acted on the existence of nonreaders even in high schools in their areas with DepEd-CAR (Cordillera Administrative Region), DepEd-Region 10 (Northern Mindanao) and DepEd-NCR (National Capital Region) imposing a 'No Read, No Move' policy.

4. In 2016, performance in the Grade 6 National Achievement Test (NAT) crashed from the 69.10 mean percentage score (MPS) in 2015 to 41.45 or by 27.65 points (39.6 percent). This was unprecedented because, previously, the biggest decrease in the Grade 6 overall MPS from one year to the next was the 4.07, or 6.93 percent, incurred in 2006. The score declined further to 39.95 and 37.44 in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The average overall Grade 6 MPS from 2005 to 2015 is 64.96 while from 2016 to 2018, it is 39.61 for a difference of 25.35 or 39.02 percent.

5. Our Grade 4 pupils who took the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2003 scored 358 in mathematics and 332 in science, which were good for third to the last rank in both subjects. The 2019 batch obtained 297 in mathematics and 249 in science ranking last in both subjects. The 2003 pupils outperformed their counterparts in 2019 by 61 points, or 17.03 percent, in mathematics and by 83 points or 25 percent in science. The showing of the 2003 Grade 4 batch was no fluke because the Grade 8 Filipino examinees in the TIMSS placed third to the last in both subjects in 1999, improving to fifth to the last in mathematics and fourth to the last in science in 2003.

6. In its paper 'Foundational Mathematics and Reading Skills of Filipino Students Over a Generation,' the Asian Development Bank found that the mathematics skills of Grade 10 students had deteriorated between 2003 and 2019 with the decline between 2013 and 2019 four times more severe than between 2003 and 2013 ('WB apologizes for PH education report; ADBI echoes findings,' Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 10, 2021).

This evidence likewise supports the conclusion that the scrapping of the time-honored Grade 1 reading cut-off in 2001 and the introduction of the mother tongue policy in school year 2012 to 2013 were the blunders, which have brought Philippine basic education to its knees.

Estanislao C. Albano Jr.

casigayan@yahoo.com

Cellphone: 09162850581