THE Department of Education recently issued a statement that we are not expecting to see high scores in the upcoming results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), where the Philippines scored last in 2018.

The decline has been happening over the past decades as shown by the 'achievements' of the Philippines in the PISA 2018, where we had the spectacularly low performance of 79th of 79, and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss), where we placed 58th over 58 in 2019, and as corroborated by local tests as well.