A federation of private schools on Friday urged the Department of Education (DepEd) to offer logic as a subject to elementary and high school students to improve their creative thinking skills.

The Federation of Associations of Private Schools and Administrators (FAPSA) made the appeal following Filipino students’ poor ranking in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report released on 18 June 2024.

Filipino students’ score was the second lowest among 64 ranked countries. PISA said the Philippines logged a mean score of 14 on the creative thinking performance of 15-year-old students.

“As a school administrator, I am deeply ashamed of myself. Have we not contributed anything good?” FAPSA president Eleazardo Kasilag said in a statement.

“Our students are not critical and creative enough? Then it is time to offer logic to our primary and intermediate pupils in elementary school,” Kasilag said, appealing to incoming education secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara.

Kasilag said logic is the basic subject in Philosophy which could be modified for the understanding of Grade 4 pupils all the way up to the secondary level.

“Logic is the tool that answers the question ‘why.’ And once you get the system of it, even without you knowing it, you become critical, imaginative and creative individuals,” Kasilag said.

“In the earliest times, when there were no schools yet, Spartan leaders had to excel in logic and oration, then leadership was merited,” he noted.

Logic, according to Kasilag, is not that difficult. In fact, if the teacher is creative enough, he could make the lessons intriguing and amusing and the pupils would not want to go to recess.

“We have to accept that philosophy is the mother of all studies,” said Kasilag, who has a Master’s degree in Philosophy and taught it for a while.

The PISA 2022 study assessed international students’ ability to generate diverse ideas, generate creative ideas, and evaluate and improve on ideas. These areas of testing are crucial in developing a well-rounded education system that prepares students for challenges in the future.