Focusing on the steep decline in student proficiency nationwide, the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) is pushing for an immediate end of mass promotions where teachers are pressured to pass unqualified learners to meet administrative performance targets.
Citing the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment report for school year 2024-2025, it was revealed that 48.76 percent of learners are not reading at grade level by Grade 3 and while 30.5 percent of students are proficient at that stage, mastery steadily weakens as learners advance, dropping to just 0.40 percent by Grade 12.
EDCOM 2 attributed the crisis to multiple systemic failures that include early childhood stunting that affects 23.6 percent of children, limited access to early childhood education, with participation among three- to four-year-olds at only 34 percent and policies that allow learners to advance despite poor mastery.
Accordingly, learning losses were recorded to be aggravated by shortened school years, with students averaging only 191 actual class days and some regions losing up to 42 days due to class suspensions and some school activities.
“Without addressing these basics, downstream reforms in higher education will fail,” EDCOM II pointed out.
“Central to this roadmap is fixing the foundations, which includes the full implementation of the ARAL Program, the immediate end to mass promotion practices, the phaseout of DepEd grade transmutation policies and a commitment to investing at least five percent of gross domestic product in education, with resources frontloaded to the early years,” the commission added.
Earlier findings of the commission also flagged an accumulated classroom backlog of 165,000, the absence of textbooks from 2013 to 2023 and excessive administrative workloads that pull teachers away from performing their primary task of instruction.
To address the learning crisis, EDCOM II has formally submitted to the House of Representatives their report themed ‘Turning Point: A Decade of Necessary Reforms’, along with its National Education and Workforce Development Plan (NatPlan) for the current year until 2035.
House committee on higher and technical education chairman Tingog party-list representative Jude Acidre, together with Pasig City lone district congressman Roman Romulo and fellow commissioners Steve Solon of Sarangani, Ziaur-Rahman ‘Zia’ Adiong of Lanao del Sur and Anna Victoria Tuazon of Leyte, led the submission of the commission’s findings and ten-year roadmap aimed at addressing the country’s learning and workforce challenges.
Acidre cited that the education crisis, while deep, remains solvable even as he pointed to the significant reforms achieved during EDCOM II’s three-year mandate.
“We are no longer just talking about prioritizing education; we are funding it . . . We are putting the ‘public’ back in public service,” the sectoral lawmaker noted.
As chair of the higher and technical education panel, Acidre underscored persistent gaps in the education sector, including rigid credentialing systems, weak linkages between skills training and degree programs and mismatches between education outcomes and labor market needs.
Meanwhile. Department of Education (DepEd) secretary Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara has committed that they would be translating long-standing recommendations into concrete, time-bound actions for schools, teachers and learners.
“Many of the recommendations reflect reforms that DepEd has already started implementing. What we are doing now is moving faster, scaling up and tightening accountability,” Angara enthused while vowing to continue working with Congress and development partners to monitor progress under the NatPlan.
He stressed that success over the next decade will be measured by faster implementation and tangible improvements in learning outcomes.
“Turning point is ultimately a nation-building agenda, and its success will depend on collective action,” he stated while urging lawmakers, local government units (LGUs), industry partners, parents and civil society to sustain reforms beyond political influences.