The Philippines scored the lowest in reading comprehension with a mean score of 340 points, below the survey average of 487 points; while it was the second-lowest in Science at 357 and in Math at 353, below the average of 489 points in both subjects. Interpreting the findings in context, OECD notes that expenditure per student in the Philippines was the lowest amongst all PISA-participating countries, and the expenditure was 90% lower than the OECD average. “By comparison, expenditure per student in Indonesia was 83% lower than the OECD average and students there outperformed students in the Philippines, although their scores were still lower than those of students in between 66 and 70 other countries/economies,” the PISA report added. Fast-forward to the past two years, when the pandemic forced schools to continue their classes virtually and even some to halt their operations, the difficulties in the country’s education system have been found to be much deeper. A report by the World Bank (WB) last year highlighted that the Philippines’ learning poverty — defined as the share of 10-year-old children who cannot read and understand a simple story — was estimated at 69.5% in 2019, based on Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2003 outcomes. On the other hand, based on Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics from 2019, as published in United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) report on the State of Learning Poverty, the country’s learning poverty is at 90.9%. According to WB, school closures and learning loss during the pandemic can have a long-term negative impact on the current cohort of school children, and these two factors are likely to affect the children’s economic potential and productivity in adulthood. WB estimated that due to learning losses, an average annual earning per student will decrease by $893 to $1,137, or a loss of present value of individual lifetime earnings by $16,287 to $20,752. Further on the pandemic’s impacts, WB observed that an additional 1.6 million students were out of school in 2021 as overall basic education enrollment was 6% lower than in 2020. Enrolled children, meanwhile, faced many challenges to effective learning under a distance learning modality; and such challenges have been found greater for lower-income households who have limited resources for better access. This likely explains the high demand for returning to in-person classes, highly driven by lower-income households and women. Cited by advocacy group Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) in a statement, a survey by Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Pamilya ng Pantawid of more than 9,000 parents revealed that they spent 40% more because of distance learning compared to 2020; while a Pulse Asia survey said that one out of four parents think their children are not learning in the remote setup. More recently, according to UNICEF’s report, jointly published in partnership with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and WB last March, nearly six out of every 10 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries suffering from learning poverty. Translated to the Philippine context, less than 15% of Filipino children are found to be capable of reading a simple text at age 10 — placing the country’s learning poverty somewhere around 85%. Another highlight of the report confirmed that the Philippines has the longest duration of school closures, as of last February. Year 2020 figures cited by PBEd showed that private school closures reached a total of 1,179.


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