What do we do with low literacy rates?
“An estimated 21% of those who graduated senior high school are functionally illiterate or cannot understand simple text, according to the latest Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) survey released by the PSA.”
This is from the latest news regarding the Philippines’ situation in regards to education and ultimately its future.
Just wanted to share this because on May 12 the Philippine elections are taking place. Year after year I continue to be disappointed with the minimal progress (and often times setbacks) in the environment and public transport sectors, let alone education.
I have nothing else really to say about this, as we are all likely thinking the same thing – when will this spiral of bad news in regards to public policy, implementation, and/or lack thereof start to feel like it’s turning around?
In terms of the literacy issue, I came across this write-up by Gigo Alampay, founder of an NGO that works to promote children’s literacy. Excerpt below, but you can read it all on their Substack here.
“The real connection is not between poverty and bad voting decisions, but between illiteracy and political disempowerment. People make uninformed choices not because they are poor, but because they have not been equipped – by our schools, by our government, by our collective inattention – to read, to think critically, to choose wisely.
This is not their failure. It is ours. We – the supposed better educated, more well-read, more privileged – are the beneficiaries of an educational system from which others have been locked out of. Unless we actively work to dismantle these barriers and extend those same opportunities to others, we are not just witnesses to inequality. We are complicit participants in its perpetuation.
So what do we do?
We start by treating education not as a favor, but as a right. We start by seeing books not as gifts, but as vaccines against ignorance, against disinformation, against tyranny disguised as charisma. We stop thinking of ensuring access to books as charity, and start treating it as civic infrastructure.”
-Gigo Alampay, “No Democracy without Readers.”
Coupled with the pandemic and a focus on fighting drugs and political family feuds in the executive branch, education has definitely taken the backseat.
Obviously a bit late to do anything with our votes on May 12, but perhaps we should start thinking, and acting, on what needs to be done before and after every election. Maybe only then will we see votes and elections as actual tools for democracy, instead of tools for the privileged few.
Yesterday my wife pulled out her scrabble board, and we played it with our niece and my mother-in-law. It was nice to see our niece come up with words, and even struggle with others, as these were opportunities to help her and know her strengths and weaknesses. This also gave her an opportunity to observe our strategies, and to apply them in her own way.
It was great to play with my mom-in-law too. She’s a retired professor, so she surpassed us early in the game. With a stroke of luck I barely won in the end. But with the cross-generational learning, and observing our niece grow before our eyes, I think it’s safe to say we all won. And we will all win if we play the game of collective betterment together. How do we play that game at a grander scale?
Resources and links
- Download free e-books and read to children among your friends and family from the comfort of home, with your phone: Free e-books in Filipino and English at Canvas.PH
- Volunteer or donate to The Storytelling Project, which brings the joy of reading to children in schools across the country: The Storytelling Project, TSP’s Facebook page, Donate through their Google form here (local peso donations). For international donations email: kwentongtsp@gmail.com
- Read Gigo’s entire write-up: “No democracy without readers,” by Gigo Alampay
- News on the literacy issue in the Philippines: “1 in 5 high school graduates functionally illiterate”, PhilStar news
- Literacy statistics from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA): Philippine Statistics Authority data on FLEMMS
- Philippine election 2025 links
- Full list of senatorial candidates (PhilStar, COMELEC).
- Full list of party list groups (COMELEC).
- An interesting way of “filtering” through senatorial candidates by Ivan Lanuza on Facebook.
- One analysis on surveys of senatorial candidates by Gerry Cacanindin on Facebook.