Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 18) — Around 40,000 grade school students in the Bicol Region struggle to read.
According to Department of Education (DepEd) Region V, a series of tests administered by the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) revealed that these students are considered as “struggling readers” after taking both English and Filipino tests. Around 18,143 of those are in Grade levels 3 to 6.
The Phil-IRI is an informal reading inventory that consists of graded passages designed to determine a student’s performance in oral reading, silent reading, and listening comprehension.
It was earlier reported that there were 70,000 students in the region who cannot read, but DepEd Region V clarified in a statement Monday that the previous numbers released were initial results and were not validated from the Schools Divisions Offices at the beginning of school year 2019-2020.
In line with this alarming number of students who cannot read in his province, House Ways and Means Chairman Joey Sarte Salceda of the second district of Albay, has called for the urgent passage of proposals in his comprehensive education reform agenda, calling the issue “a ticking economic time bomb.”
He said that “any child who reaches higher levels of elementary school without knowing how to read is a cause of concern.”
“When I was governor of Albay from 2007 to 2016, Bicol was making significant strides in education, to the point that many of our efforts in Albay were replicated across the country and we were nationally awarded and recognized,” Salceda said.
The former Albay governor authored a series of education-related bills called the Comprehensive Education Reform Agenda.
“This is a ticking economic time bomb. We need to respond with policy as soon as we can. For all our talk of the ‘demographic dividend,’ if young Filipinos are not properly skilled and properly educated, if they cannot apply what’s in their books in practical, everyday life, then we shall have failed as a country and as a system. We will not be able to compete in the next generation.” Salceda said.
