Solon seeks more focus on curriculum, teaching to improve literacy

TACLOBAN CITY – A congressman who sits as one of the commissioners of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) is pushing for a higher allocation for curriculum and teaching methods to improve the country’s functional literacy.

Speaking to reporters Sunday night, Tingog Partylist Rep. Jude Acidre said 60 percent of the budget for basic education should be intended to enhance curriculum and teaching to elementary and high school students.

“We should focus on these areas. We have been asking the Department of Education (DepEd) to look into it. I think DepEd is going in that direction,” said Acidre, one of five EDCOM 2 members from the House of Representatives.

In the 2025 General Appropriations Act, of the PHP1.055 trillion budget for education, PHP734.18 billion is for DepEd, the agency tasked to formulate, implement, and coordinate policies, plans, programs and projects in the areas of formal and non-formal basic education.

According to DepEd, basic education facilities have a budget of PHP36.81 billion, basic education curriculum got a PHP3.69 billion outlay, while early language literacy and numeracy had an allocation of PHP106.23 million.

Acidre emphasized the importance of focusing more on basic education after the Senate Committee on Basic Education hearing on April 30 found that approximately 18 million Filipinos who are graduates from the country’s basic education system could be functionally illiterate.

This is based on data from the Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in the second half of 2024.

The PSA defines functional literacy as the ability of a person to read, write, compute, and comprehend. In addition to basic literacy skills, functional literacy includes a higher level of comprehension skills, such as integrating two or more pieces of information and making inferences based on the given information.

The FLEMMS report also disclosed that the province of Northern Samar ranked 4th in the country, with 48 percent of secondary graduates being functionally illiterate. Another province is Samar, with 46 percent functional illiteracy, the 7th highest in the country.

The two provinces are among the poorest in the Eastern Visayas region in 2023, according to PSA.

“Poverty is a very convenient excuse, but there is always a mechanism. Even if we are a poor region, we have been producing good graduates in the past years. It’s about handling education programs at the classroom level,” Acidre added.

Mandated under Republic Act 11899, which lapsed into law on July 23, 2022, EDCOM 2 is tasked with conducting a national review of the country’s education sector.

The commission is composed of 10 legislators, with five each from the Senate and House of Representatives. The body is headed by four co-chairpersons with six commissioners. (PNA)