Not even 1% of Grade 12 students ‘proficient’ in their subjects

MANILA, Philippines – Filipino children may be advancing in the K to 12 system, but they are not necessarily learning the subjects they are taking.

Citing results of the Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment (ELLNA) and National Achievement Test (NAT) conducted from 2023 to 2025, the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) flagged “worrying declines in proficiency” across key stages — Grades 3, 6, 10, and 12.

The Department of Education conducts the ELLNA and NAT to help monitor the country’s education system and determine if students are “meeting the learning standards of the curriculum,” as laid out in a DepEd order issued in 2016.

Students’ scores are classified according to these ratings:

At least 75% – proficient or highly proficient 50% to 74% – nearly proficient Below 50% – low proficient or not proficient

EDCOM 2’s Final Report, released on Monday, January 26, says only 30.5% of Grade 3 learners who took the ELLNA were considered either proficient or highly proficient. At this stage, foundational skills — “recognizing letters and sounds, reading common words, understanding short passages, counting on their own, or doing simple numerical problem-solving” — should already be mastered.

The percentage of proficient or highly proficient students dropped to 19.56% in Grade 6 based on the NAT, then plummeted further to 0.74% in Grade 10 and 0.40% in Grade 12 or the final year of senior high school (SHS).

The 0.40% is equivalent to only 6,518 out of 1.6 million Grade 12 students, or just four in every 1,000. Proficiency at this stage, according to EDCOM 2, refers to being “skilled in solving problems, managing and communicating information, and analyzing and evaluating data to create or formulate ideas.”

Graphic from EDCOM 2

“Many SHS graduates still require remediation in literacy, numeracy, and scientific reasoning when they enter higher education,” EDCOM 2 said, citing Commission on Higher Education panels.

EDCOM 2 also noted that “proficiency gaps are even more severe in structurally disadvantaged school settings,” or in the country’s most vulnerable areas.

These include learners in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas or GIDA and in last mile schools, which are schools in remote or conflict-hit places that lack proper facilities and specialized teachers.

Out of 210,350 Grade 12 learners in such areas in school year (SY) 2023-2024, only 266 or 0.13% were considered proficient.

Need to establish the basics

EDCOM 2 Executive Director Karol Mark Yee has said that the findings mirror results from past decades, showing a long-standing problem in the education system.

“These findings are not new…. Many years of neglect has led us to this, but we can overcome this by prioritizing, above all else, foundational skills,” Yee said.

Foundational skills that need a massive boost include reading. The DepEd’s Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment showed 48.76% or nearly half of students from Grades 1 to 3 not reading at their respective grade levels at the end of SY 2024-2025.

Left unaddressed, the inability to read and comprehend information causes more problems for students in later stages of schooling, and all the way to adulthood.

Curriculum reforms

EDCOM 2 said the results “make clear that curriculum and instruction reforms must directly confront deep learning gaps rather than simply adding more years or content.”

The DepEd continues to implement the revised K to 10 curriculum or Matatag curriculum in phases — a rollout that has been beset by problems such as a mismatch between teachers’ specialization and the subjects they teach. Matatag was rolled out for kindergarten and Grades 1, 4, and 7 in SY 2024-2025, and Grades 2, 5, and 8 in SY 2025-2026. Next are Grades 3, 6, and 9 in SY 2026-2027, then finally, Grade 10 in SY 2027-2028.

The pilot of the Strengthened SHS Curriculum also got underway in more than 800 schools in SY 2025-2026. However, it “still functions more as a general preparatory stage for college than as a set of distinct and viable exits to work, skills certification, or entrepreneurship,” according to the EDCOM 2 report.

Both Matatag and the Strengthened SHS Curriculum are primarily aimed at decongesting content. They “provide a necessary but still fragile foundation,” EDCOM 2 noted, but should be reviewed and refined. They will also not be enough to close the severe learning gaps.

“They revise what is supposed to be learned, but they rely on complementary changes in learning recovery, instructional time, teacher workload, and support services to translate into large-scale gains in learner outcomes,” the commission said.

EDCOM 2 also called for “more aggressive remediation interventions” in the school calendar and through the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning or ARAL Program to help improve students’ proficiency.

Under EDCOM 2’s National Education Plan, a 10-year roadmap for 2026 to 2035, it hopes to increase the percentage of at least proficient Grade 3 learners from the existing 30.5% to 50% by 2028, 70% by 2031, and 90% by 2035.

From 0.40% for Grade 12 learners, the targets are 30% by 2028, 60% by 2031, and 90% by 2035. – Rappler.com

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