MANILA – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has directed the Department of Education (DepEd) to improve the Philippines’ performance in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Marcos gave the order in a briefing in Malacañang, after learning that the Philippines ranked in the bottom 10 among the 81 countries that participated in the study, which assesses student literacy in three domains: reading, mathematics and science, according to Education Undersecretaries Michael Poa and Gina Gonong.
A total of 7,193 Filipino students picked from 188 schools, 106 divisions, and 16 regions and representing 83 percent of the total population of 15-year-old students in the country, completed the computer-based test.
“Actually, the President was not really disappointed but he wants us to push, to keep working hard to improve our performance in PISA as well as the performance of students in general,” Gonong said in English and Filipino.
Marcos wants the DepEd to focus specifically on improving teacher support, teacher quality, as well as addressing the issue of bullying and proper nutrition among students.
Marcos believes that these would result in around 60 percent improvement in students’ learning capacity and teaching quality.
The government allotted a P5.6 billion budget last year for the initiative and increased it to P11.7 billion this year to allow the implementation of a yearlong feeding program.
“In terms of what needs to be done immediately, there’s the need to collaborate with other agencies for nutrition, national learning recovery program, the teacher welfare — we need to do these now,” Gonong added.
Bodhi Molina