In one chapter of Jose Rizal's first novel Noli Me Tangere, the protagonist of the story, Crisostomo Ibarra, met with a schoolteacher who tried – and apparently failed – to encourage his students to learn more using methods that may look "revolutionary" (in the literal sense) to the Spanish priests who rule the Philippines then.
One lament of the schoolteacher is that education merely focuses on memorizing sacred texts in Spanish and Latin, as the local kura paroko had directed him. As a result, "the children become changed into parrots and know by heart so many things of which they do not understand a single word."
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I am reminded of this episode after a recent World Bank study which had served, rightly, to alarm Filipino educators.
One chart from that study showed that the Philippines is that the very bottom of reading comprehension rates among ASEAN countries.
According to that chart, 90.9 percent – or nine out of ten Filipinos – have so-called "learning poverty," or the inability to read and understand age-appropriate texts by age 10.
That “disastrous” (as Philippine Star columnist Boo Chanco called it) rating compared to top ranked Singapore at 2.8 percent; Vietnam at 18.1 percent; Thailand at 23.4 percent; Malaysia at 42 percent; Indonesia at 52.8 percent.
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I'm sure you'll understand what I meant when I'll say that Filipinos have very poor reading comprehension.
How many times we have said to relatives, friends, neighbors, or total strangers, out of frustration, "Magbasa ka nga!" due to their inability to comprehend or understand even the simplest of tasks or reading materials.
Here’s a few examples I remember from my own personal experience:
1. OpinYon Laguna once posted on social media an advisory about road closures in effect in a certain city in the province, due to a religious event that, may I point out, was prominently indicated in the post. One Facebook comment which had had me face-palming: “Ano po bang event ang gaganapin diyan?”
2. The staff of a music school which shares headquarters with OpinYon Laguna once sent some materials detailing the school’s offerings and tuition fees to one parent. That parent replied, “Ano po ba ang rates ninyo para sa ganitong subject?”
3. The destination of the bus I rode in was prominently displayed on the windshield in bold, “screaming” letters: LRT BUENDIA. Yet not one, not two, but many of the passengers approached the conductor to ask if the bus goes to LRT Buendia!
On hindsight, what we should have been saying is not,
“Magbasa ka nga!” but “Unawain mo nga iyang binabasa mo!”
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In his column, Chanco placed the blame squarely on the Department of Education (DepEd) for allegedly failing to abide by international standards in measuring how the country’s education sector had achieved its goals.
Instead, we are now seeing overworked, underpaid teachers being given low-quality yet expensive laptops, plus the still lagging quality of our Internet service that has hampered efforts to deliver quality education during the pandemic.
Added to this the apparent mindset of many of our leaders nowadays that any report that puts the Philippines on a bad light are efforts of the “dilawan” or the Communists or the United States to overthrow the government. Chanco even mentioned a former Secretary of Finance who blasted not DepEd, but the World Bank for publishing its dismal reports in the first place.
For decades, teachers and experts have sounded the alarm on the worsening state of our education. Yet the government has apparently done little beyond cosmetic changes in ensuring that Filipinos not only read, but also able to understand what they are reading.
Reminds me of the late Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s famous quip that politicians are afraid of an intelligent populace – a notion that has, unfortunately, become a grim reality.