1 in 5 high school graduates functionally illiterate

May 2, 2025 | 3:41pm

MANILA, Philippines — Around one in five Filipino senior high school graduates cannot effectively comprehend what they read, a national survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority has found. 

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. 

The FLEMMS is a national survey conducted by the PSA every five years that gathers information on the literacy and education status of the population.

The 2024 iteration of the survey — findings of which were released last month — was the first time that the PSA has revised its definition of functional literacy to strictly require comprehension skills. 

Previously, high school graduates were automatically categorized as functionally literate regardless of their actual ability to comprehend simple text. This automatic classification of graduates was removed in the 2024 conduct of the survey after consulting with education officials.

What the latest survey findings show is that approximately 18 million Filipinos who graduated from high school as of 2024 may be functionally illiterate under the new standards. 

"We recently are able to distill functional literacy by highest grade completed, and we note that only 79% of senior high school graduates in the K-12 are functional literate, meaning there's around 21% who are not able," Adrian Cerezo, assistant national statistician of PSA's social sector statistics service, said during a Senate basic education committee hearing on April 30.

The findings surprised Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the Senate basic education panel, who asked how these students were able to complete secondary education despite not having functional literacy.

"That's a problem of basic education, because how did they graduate while being functionally illiterate?" Gatchalian asked. 

"This is where basic education comes in, because that 18 million who graduated while not being functionally literate should not happen," he said. 

The senator added that the Department of Education (DepEd) should take a more proactive approach to ensure its graduates meet the most basic definition of functional literacy. "DepEd should already be proactive in making sure that no one will graduate without being functionally literate," Gatchalian said.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara has since vowed to ramp up the department's reforms, including the implementation of remedial and literacy programs. 

RELATED: 3 in 10 Filipinos struggle to comprehend what they read — but poverty deepens the problem

In 2022, the World Bank reported that learning poverty in the Philippines is at 91%, indicating that about nine out of ten children aged 10 have difficulty reading simple text.

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