Over 24.8 Million Filipinos Are Functionally Illiterate. How Did We Get Here?

The number of functionally illiterate Filipinos has nearly doubled in the past 30 years, reaching 24.8 million. This was revealed by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2), which called attention to deeper problems that go beyond reading and writing skills.

Behind this growing illiteracy rate lies a bigger issue: the education system itself. The Department of Education (DepEd) is juggling hundreds of roles that take its attention away from its main responsibility: making sure Filipino students can learn and understand what they read.

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According to Education Secretary Sonny Angara, DepEd currently sits in 261 interagency bodies. It chairs 20 of them and participates in 21 more with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

This level of involvement might seem like a sign of dedication, but EDCOM 2 warns it actually distracts the department from its true purpose. The agency is handling tasks that range from health programs to disaster response, leaving less time to focus on the classroom.

This concern is not new. In 1993, the first EDCOM already urged the government to let DepEd focus only on basic education. Back then, there were 14.5 million functionally illiterate Filipinos. Thirty years later, despite reforms and restructuring, that number has ballooned instead of shrinking.

Teachers feel this problem every day. Aside from their teaching load, they are required to manage a long list of programs and reports. These include vision screenings, feeding programs, disaster preparedness plans, and even coordination with the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

“These added responsibilities have aggravated the deficit of support staff in schools, forcing teachers to absorb ancillary and administrative work,” said EDCOM 2 executive director Karol Mark Yee.

When teachers spend hours filling out forms or attending coordination meetings, less time is left for lesson planning and student engagement. Learning suffers, and so does the overall quality of education.

EDCOM 2 also discovered wide disparities in how school divisions are structured across the country. Some provinces handle over a thousand schools each, while others manage fewer than fifty.

In Leyte and Cebu, for example, school division offices (SDOs) oversee more than 1,300 schools. In contrast, Caloocan City manages only 319, and Batanes just 28. The result is uneven access to resources and supervision.

To fix this, DepEd has started decentralizing its operations. One example is the newly created SDO in Carmona City, which was previously under the large Cavite Provincial Division. “Carmona will now have its own SDO funds. It will surely help the teachers, employees and learners of the city,” Angara said during its inauguration.

This localized setup will allow each division to respond more quickly to the needs of its schools. DepEd has also coordinated with Congress to increase education funding, reallocating some infrastructure budgets to improve schools and teacher support.

While DepEd struggles with basic education, CHED is facing another challenge: the rise of low-quality graduate programs, often called “diploma mills.”

EDCOM 2’s study found that many teachers pursue master’s or doctoral degrees mainly to earn promotion points rather than to improve their teaching. “There is a strong public perception that the pursuit of advanced degrees has at times become transactional—a means to gain promotion points rather than to enhance teaching competence,” Yee said.

Many of these programs are offered by private universities concentrated in Metro Manila. This makes advanced education less accessible to teachers in the provinces and limits their chances for genuine professional growth.

EDCOM 2 recommended that CHED adopt a “tiered regulatory approach,” meaning schools should be evaluated based on the quality of their programs and their capacity to deliver results. DepEd, on the other hand, should consider the quality of graduate programs when assessing teacher promotions, not just whether the degree is CHED-recognized.

Click here to explore previous studies from EDCOM 2.