The Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) 2024 report shows no significant progress in Philippines Grade 5 reading scores over five years, with over 70% lacking basic proficiency. Mathematics saw modest gains, but disparities between high- and low-performing students widened, signaling deepening educational inequality.
The SEA-PLM 2024 report indicates the Philippines' average reading score at 289.5 points, unchanged from 287.7 in 2019. Over 27% of Grade 5 students remained at very low proficiency, struggling with simple texts, while 52% fell below the minimum proficiency band 4, unable to handle texts beyond personal experience. For reading, the share meeting minimum proficiency (band 5) rose slightly to 27% from 22%, and highly proficient readers to 14% from 10%, but the lowest performers held steady, widening inequality.
In mathematics, scores improved by 4.9 points to 292.8 from 287.9, with 46% meeting minimum proficiency (up from 35%) and 26% highly proficient (up from 17%).
Socioeconomic disparities were starkest among the six countries: the reading gap between poorest and wealthiest households grew to 34.5 points from 29.7, or two years of learning. Language barriers persisted, with only 10% speaking test-language English at home scoring higher. The Philippines recently suspended mother-tongue-based multilingual education, emphasizing Filipino and English.
The assessment covered 5,070 Grade 5 students across 156 schools, 68% of which faced over six months of COVID-19 closures (2020-2022). Three-quarters attended schools short on digital tools.
These findings come as the Department of Education rolls out a new curriculum and national learning recovery program focused on reading and math basics.