The country's worsening literacy crisis is the result of decades of chronic underfunding and persistent shortages in public schools, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said, following the release of fresh education data showing alarming learning gaps among Filipino students.

A recent report from the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) show around 1.3 million of the country's 1.4 million Grade 11 students have difficulty understanding what they read.

Nearly 59 percent were classified as being at the "frustration" level, the lowest literacy category, while another 28.5 percent were at the instructional level and still required teacher guidance to comprehend written material.

“The figures are alarming, but this comes to no surprise to us teachers who stood witness to a crisis produced by years of underfunding, overcrowded classrooms, lack of learning materials, and excessive workload imposed on educators,” ACT chairperson Ruby Bernardo said.

The latest findings add to mounting evidence of a deepening learning crisis in Philippine schools.

Last year, EDCOM 2 reported that 85 percent of Grade 1 to Grade 3 learners nationwide were struggling readers, indicating that literacy problems begin early and persist through higher grade levels.

The commission has repeatedly warned that weak foundational skills in reading and comprehension continue to accumulate as students move through the education system.

For ACT, however, the poor literacy outcomes are symptoms of long-standing structural problems rather than shortcomings that can be addressed through administrative reforms alone.

“Changing the academic calendar will not build the 165,000 classrooms needed nationwide. It will not hire the more than 150,000 teachers lacking in our schools. It will not solve the shortage of books, chairs, and learning materials confronting millions of students every day,” Bernardo said.

ACT also criticized the government's reliance on learning recovery initiatives, saying teachers continue to shoulder much of the burden of addressing learning losses worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Whatever gains may have been achieved under remediation programs such as ARAL are largely due to the sacrifice, extended labor, and commitment of underpaid teachers who continue to compensate for systemic failures,” Bernardo said.

The Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program was institutionalized as the government's flagship intervention to help struggling learners improve reading and numeracy skills.

However, EDCOM 2 recently flagged delays in the hiring of tutors for the program, with many remediation sessions being handled by unpaid volunteer teachers instead of the expanded tutor pool envisioned under the law.

ACT had earlier described the ARAL rollout as "ill-prepared," citing unclear funding mechanisms, insufficient compensation for tutors and the additional workload imposed on teachers.

The group argued that many educators were compelled to take on tutoring responsibilities despite earlier assurances that external tutors would be hired for the program.

“The decades-long crisis plaguing the education sector is fundamentally a problem of state social investment,” Bernardo said.

She urged the government to increase education spending to at least 6 percent of gross domestic product and channel additional resources toward classroom construction, teacher hiring, salary increases and the provision of learning materials.

ACT urged the Marcos administration to raise education spending to at least 6 percent of gross domestic product and direct additional resources toward classroom construction, teacher hiring, salary increases and the provision of learning materials.

While the government recently approved more than 32,000 new teaching positions, ACT said the figure remains far below the estimated national shortage of around 145,000 teachers cited in previous EDCOM 2 findings.

“No amount of repackaging, trimester schemes, or assessment tools can compensate for decades of state abandonment of public education,” Bernardo said.