North Luzon Monitor

North Luzon

An Open Letter to the Vice President

George Babsa-ay Jr.
Latest posts by George Babsa-ay Jr. (see all)

Dear Madam Vice President,

I write from the mountains of Benguet, of the Ibaloi Tribe.

I say this since: first, you won here big-time – 70% of total votes cast – so, far from being any attempt to roil any on-going political rifts, real or contrived, it’s a thinly-veiled crack at currying favor with you, as concurrent DepEd Secretary.

Second, despite branded timid folks, we don’t shy away from some wrangling ourselves, more so, if it concerns our children.

Third, I fear this box of a column will lose its angle, even before it could find one, pressing me to skew the Score, to secure readership.

And so – with due respect, Madam Vice President, why aren’t our children reading as they should? Or, if they are, not grasping what they should?

As per a Philippine Star report (Servallos, J., Dec 6, 2023, Student assessment: Philippines still in bottom 10), the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test – one made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to gauge 15-year-olds’ ability to use their Reading, Math and Science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges – showed ours tanking all three – 76th out of 81 countries tested. And show no signs of improving.

While this could be pinned on the pandemic, test scores in all three have already been dwindling prior to 2018, says OECD exec Mathias Cormann. For another, it WAS a pandemic, after all. All other 80 countries got hit, too.

So, what gives?

More so, and please pardon my crassness – what are we doing about it? This “dismal performance”? And I don’t refer to our learners’ various Tik-Tok routines, for a sizable horde seems to outclass us there, hands down.

“Sweeping Reforms,” we did hear. But a sweeping statement doesn’t tell much, too. Four months since the PISA national forum, may we be respectfully updated and be shushed into shame already by the whole plan?

To rise above the distractions, from that political fray, going all-out-war, going gung-ho instead against pseudo-literacy is the easy stately step – a laser-sharp focus on the well-being of 21 million learners under your helm. Foremost, at this point, on how to second-skin in our learners a passion for reading. To stir up a culture of reading.

A task of mythical proportions, one might say. And very tempting, indeed, to dumbing it all down.

Apart from error-riddled texts that don’t inspire much confidence and, thus, any reading, at all, there roils the view that our learners, somehow mistakenly thought of as fractured or fragile, are being ridiculously babied. If so, to force-read them, until reading becomes a Tik-Tok routine, demands serious consideration.

A few meters away from my door is a sari-sari store, Boknoy’s hangout. Probably in Grade one or two, his turtle-nose forever stuck to a cellphone, Boknoy munches on a donut or some cookie, rapt on a video of some sort. Not once did a book occupy him, not even a coloring book. The other day, Ningning, Boknoy’s neighbor of the same age, was overheard to have mumbled, “I’m very jealousy,” as she walked past the store with her mum.

And so – for Boknoy, Ningning and her mum, these mountains and our Nation, and this box that encases them all – with due respect Madam Vice President, where to from here?

Scroll to Top