Grade 5 PHL students trail Southeast Asian peers in reading, math

GRADE 5 students in the Philippines continue to fall behind most Southeast Asian neighbors in terms of proficiency in reading and mathematics, a learning assessment program by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) showed.

- By Almira Louise S. Martinez and Aubrey Rose A. Inosante Reporters

The 2024 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) showed the 14% of Grade 5 students in the Philippines were considered to have “high proficiency” in reading, an improvement from the 10% in the 2019 study.

However, this was second lowest among the six countries in the study, after Vietnam, where 66% of Grade 5 students had high proficiency in reading. The Philippines was also behind Malaysia (49%), Myanmar (31%) and Cambodia (18%), but ahead of Lao (4%).

In the Philippines, 13% of Grade 5 students were considered to have reached the minimum proficiency level for reading, where they can connect related information across sections of texts to understand key ideas. This was slightly higher than 12% in 2019.

On the other hand, 27% of Grade 5 students in the Philippines have very low reading proficiency or are able to associate one of four given words to an illustration of a familiar object, place, or symbol. It was unchanged from 2019.

The study also showed a modest gain in reading performance of Filipino students, with the national average nearly flat at 289.5 in 2024 from 287.7 in 2019.

Meanwhile, neighboring countries such as Cambodia and Myanmar had increased their national average by 6.3 and 13.6 points, respectively.

Vietnam had the highest reading score at 323.5, followed by Malaysia at 313.6.

Education Secretary Juan Edgardo "Sonny" M. Angara on Thursday said that the Philippines is doubling its efforts to boost the proficiency level of students nationwide, amid the decline of learning outcomes in international assessments.

"Let us not be worried, scores are dropping worldwide, but since we are trying to catch up with other countries, we need to work double time," Mr. Angara told reporters in Filipino at the sidelines of an event.

"Actually, even if we don't know the result yet, we are already focusing on literacy and numeracy," he added.