A review of national assessment results has flagged a widening learning gap among Filipino students, with mastery levels falling steadily from elementary to senior high school, according to the Second Congressional Commission on Education.
Drawing from Department of Education records between 2023 and 2025, the commission reported that a large majority of learners fail to firmly acquire basic skills by Grade 3, a stage considered critical for later academic development. About seven in ten pupils at this level continue to have difficulty with core competencies such as reading simple texts, identifying letters and sounds, and performing basic arithmetic independently.
Results from the 2024 Early Language, Literacy and Numeracy Assessment reinforced this trend, showing that only 30.52 percent of Grade 3 students reached either “proficient” or “highly proficient” levels. This early shortfall, the commission noted, sets the tone for later years of schooling.
Performance indicators weaken further in intermediate grades. Using data from the 2024 National Achievement Test, the commission found that proficiency among Grade 6 learners dropped to 19.56 percent, meaning fewer than one in five met the benchmark. By secondary school, the decline becomes more pronounced, with just 1.36 percent of Grade 10 students and 0.4 percent of those in Grade 12 reaching at least a proficient level.
At these upper grades, only a small fraction of learners—roughly 14 per 1,000 in Grade 10 and four per 1,000 in Grade 12—were able to demonstrate higher-order skills, including problem-solving, information management, and data analysis used to generate or evaluate ideas.
The commission attributed the pattern to gaps that emerge early and persist over time. It said many students fail to read at grade level by the end of Grade 3, a disadvantage that compounds into an estimated learning lag of more than five years by age 15. Because literacy underpins learning in numeracy and other subjects, students who fall behind early face increasing difficulty as academic demands grow.
The data also suggest that proficiency starts from a weak baseline. According to the commission, the proportion of learners rated “proficient” or “highly proficient” is already limited in the early grades and becomes almost negligible by high school.
The findings are viewed alongside existing policy on system-wide evaluation. DepEd Order No. 55, series of 2016, requires the education department to conduct regular, key-stage assessments across basic education using representative samples to gauge whether students meet curriculum standards. Under this framework, scores of 75 percent and above indicate proficiency, while those between 50 and 74 percent are labeled “nearly proficient.” Learners scoring below 50 percent fall into low or non-proficient categories.
However, a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, commissioned by the Second Congressional Commission on Education, suggested that applying the same threshold across assessments may classify a larger share of students as falling short of standards. The commission said this raises questions about whether the long-standing 75 percent benchmark realistically reflects achievable proficiency levels under current conditions.
