The Philippines' Low Proficiency in Mathematics, Reading, and Science

As Christmas vacation draws near, I remember how a vacation wasn't really a vacation. Instead, people had to prepare either for the unit or periodical tests. I can't speak much now because I'm neither teaching nor studying in school. I could also remember why I hated the Civics and Culture class. It tends to keep speaking about Pinoy Pride--as if it really helped. Sure, Filipinos do have the right to be proud of the achievements of successful Filipinos abroad. Are the schools teaching us Filipinos to really ask why more Filipinos succeed abroad? Are the schools just teaching them to have their Pinoy Pride going on? Even worse, the Civics and Culture subject seems to teach that the Filipino First Policy is a good thing. The Philippine education system really sucks. As an MBA graduate, I even wonder if I should still attack MBA to my username or not. Sure, I didn't buy the degree via Recto. However, I only learned alternative ways of stock investment online than in school. 

A look at the proficiency reports

An article that I wish I tackled a few days ago was about the Philippines' lagging behind in ASEAN. It's possibly with the rest of the world as well. The Philippine Star reveals this sad piece of information written by Cristina Chi. Am I really surprised or what? Some people say that I blame the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines too much. I'm actually blaming it on where it's inefficient. Some people on Facebook (and I believe many are boomers) keep saying in Tagalog, "It's just common sense that the problem is with the people running the system, not the system itself." It can be as annoying as over-glorifying any preferred politician they love over the ones they hate. For example, some people decided to over-glorify Atty. Maria Leonor S. Gerona-Robredo and the late Benigno Simeon C. Aquino as "prime examples". Back on track, I look at the education system and these results are anything but satisfying. 

I could talk about the data above day in and day out. A certain fanatical admirer of Mrs. Robredo says, "The difference is not the system, it's the leaders." Vietnam is a Communist state and it's unitary-presidential. It's unlike the form of government that I aim for the Philippines to become a federal-parliamentary form of government. Malaysia, a federal-parliamentary state is defeated by Vietnam in the rankings of mathematics and science. The Philippines is supposedly democratic so why in the world has a dictatorship defeated it in terms of scores? Singapore tops the list. I still think about the possibility of Migrante International crying foul because of that. 

Here's a real bummer on the facts and figures that the Philippines needs to face:

Minimum proficiency 

Based on the PISA test results, only 16% of Filipino students attained at least the basic or baseline level of proficiency in mathematics (labeled in the report as “level 2 proficiency”). 

This means that just about one out of five Filipino students who participated in PISA “can interpret and recognize, without direct instructions, how a simple situation can be represented mathematically.”

This means that 84% of Filipino students who took the test do not have sufficient mathematical skills to “(compare) the total distance across two alternative routes, or converting prices into a different currency” — examples given by PISA of basic math competencies. 

Meanwhile, only 24% or just about one out of four Filipino students who took the PISA exam reached basic reading proficiency.

This means that just 24% of students in the Philippines can, at the very least, "identify the main idea in a text of moderate length" and reflect on the purpose and meaning of what they are reading.

Similarly, just 23% of students in the Philippines reached a basic proficiency in science. This means only one out of four Filipino students in PISA 2022 had the skills to "recognize the correct explanation for familiar scientific phenomenon” and validate conclusions.  

It should be very sad to think that the Philippines has a long way to go. It's not even half of Filipinos (and some people will probably cry racist or any foul allegation along the way) that could at least have baseline proficiency in mathematics, basic reading proficiency, and science. Back in high school, we were always told that we needed to get good grades in English, Math, and Science. However, I was stuck in the belief that mathematical intelligence is already "fixed". I think my big problem wasn't really being bad at math. Maybe, D-News could've named one of its videos as "You're not bad at math. You're just suffering from math anxiety." instead of "You're just lazy." Math anxiety is a real problem. I believe I suffered from math anxiety, not being bad at math. I only got a 79 in mathematics. What makes me amused even more is how a former rival of mine, who was good at math, soon had a hard time recalling basic information on geometry. It was when we had to study for the standardized tests. I was grateful it wasn't pushed through. 

With a very low proficiency in reading, I guess that's why I read a lot of stupid blog comments and social media comments. It's very easy to miss the point these days. Even worse, their low reading proficiency makes them misrepresent the data given to them. It's like no matter how often I highlight important information--they either don't get it or refuse to get it. Some of them would rather hurl insults when I ask for empirical evidence. Calling me hurtful names may hurt me but it will never make their arguments right. That's why I learned to do the "HaHa" reaction to insults, meaning I refuse to take their foolishness seriously. 

Why I believe grades over learning has become a major cause

Some time ago, I wrote an article where I discussed why I hated school. The reason had to be all about prioritizing grades over learning (read here). When grades are more important, bribery and the like happen. A teacher can get unfairly sued as a result. Even worse, even the best teachers can be ruined by a bad system. I remember having a teacher who was pretty much like the late Atty. Miriam P. Defensor-Santiago and another science teacher who was hard to find. I feel that some mistakes they made were a result of a lousy system. Sadly, even the best schools can soon buy the hype one way or another. The big problem was that, regardless school people went to in the Philippines, the problem was grades over learning. 

Looking at this meme, I even wonder, "Was it worth it to get my bachelor's degree in business administration? Was it worth it getting my MBA which I so attached to my username?" Looking back, I was even scammed during my MBA days. Many MBA students were hit by Ponzi scams too. I even see business administration students or even graduates who believe in the faulty data presentation by the IBON Foundation or the now-defunct Philippine Anti-Fascist League (PAFL) Facebook page. I even recall writing about how schools are producing idiots instead of intellectuals because the system cares more about grades than learning. 

This, in turn, can cause a lot of scores to tumble. If I'm to recollect childish fights I got into so-and-so in high school, I feel like bringing up grades over learning again. I often said that I may never graduate the fourth year of high school because of mathematics. One of my childish fights with several classmates was because of mathematics. I had that defeatist self-talk when it came to mathematics. We were often told that HRM was just a course for people who didn't do well in mathematics and science. I even remember saying, "I'm not apologizing! I hate mathematics!" I was told, "The teacher is just doing her job. Why not ask her to help you if you're having a hard time?" The math teacher tried to help me out but I was too proud to ask for help. I always had in mind that I was going to prove that idiot math teacher I had back in elementary wrong. I felt that my dislike for so-and-so in high school was all rooted in the fact they did better in mathematics than me. How I wish I heard Warren Edward Buffett's advice in high school not to hate people better than me. 

This video by DNews got me interested in mathematician Paul Lockart. This excerpt from The Mathematicians' Lament got me more interested in overcoming my hatred for mathematics. Turns out that I actually hate the way teachers are forced to teach mathematics than mathematics itself. Just read this excerpt and think this might hold the key to the low mathematical proficiency:

Lockhart begins with a vivid parable in which a musician has a nightmare in which music is taught to children by rote memorization of sheet music and formal rules for manipulating notes. In the nightmare, students never actually listen to music, at least not until advanced college classes or graduate school. 

The problem is that this abstract memorization and formal-method-based "music" education closely resembles the "math" education that most students receive. Formulas and algorithms are delivered with no context or motivation, with students made to simply memorize and apply them. 

Part of why many students end up disliking math, or convincing themselves that they are bad at math, comes from this emphasis on formulas and notation and methods at the expense of actually deep understanding of the naturally fascinating things mathematicians explore. It's understandable that many students (and adults) get frustrated at memorizing context-free strings of symbols and methods to manipulate them. 

This goes against what math is really about. The essence of mathematics is recognizing interesting patterns in interesting abstractions of reality and finding properties of those patterns and abstractions. This is inherently a much more creative field than the dry symbol manipulation taught conventionally. 

The problem isn't just with mathematics and science but almost every subject. I'd like to think about how I only started liking chemistry when I saw the exhibits at the University of San Carlos-Talamban Campus (USC-TC). Science can be a very fascinating subject but the way teachers are forced to teach it becomes boring. I didn't like chemistry during the second grade because of stoichiometry. The teacher, no matter how smart she was, was forced to teach it the standardized way. 

We need to think about getting good grades as a result of learning rather than good grades without learning

But think if students did more than just the facts from the books. Mathematics and science are part of life. The problem is, that almost every subject is discussed like it's not part of life. I think the problem of saying, "You just study this to learn patience." isn't the best answer. It should be more on appreciating your surroundings better regardless of what course you'll take. If a person isn't fit for the mathematics-intensive and science-intensive courses--they can still appreciate them nonetheless. I may have never made it to getting an Information Technology degree but my barely-passing college trigonometry made me appreciate its applications. I even looked at a lot of mathematics and science videos on YouTube during the pandemic. I wanted to challenge myself with my two academic weaknesses. Currently, I find mathematics and science interesting just like I find Mandarin to be a very valuable tool after high school. 

I personally dislike doing stoichiometry problems. Sure, I could control myself better now but knowing its life applications somehow made me fear performing the problems than listening to the lecture. Just think of what if we discussed stoichiometry with the approach of learning how it's used while discussing how to do it. Stoichiometry is really part of understanding life. A basic understanding of it can help you appreciate your job better. A chef could easily thank learning middle school and high school sciences while they cook delicious dishes. I even have a bizarre assumption that maybe chemists can make excellent cooks because cooking involves chemistry. 

During my weight loss program, I never thought I'd enjoy watching videos on fat loss. Just hearing the basic stoichiometry (which I dislike solving) can be interesting from another angle. I was looking for the science of weight loss. What I found was that 84% of body fat gets exhaled during the exercise process. 16% is released as water. Chemical change happens to the fat because fat is burned. For example, cooking anything involves chemical change. Chemistry was a fun subject during the first grading but the second grading was very frustrating. People who had faster learning ability with mathematics loved it. I really hated the second grading due to the really difficult part. I'd admit that most childish fights I got into were because of how I felt some people could just easily get it more than I could. I felt so left behind. What I never realized was that I wasn't alone in that struggle in the whole world or even the whole school.

We can go ahead and keep talking about how science and mathematics are both parts of life. However, the way they're discussed fails to link to it. How often are the curiosity of students aroused? I think most schools try to rush the feeding process. I even feel like the education system cares more about creating robots out of students than workers who can think. It's because of creative thinking we have industrial robots. Regurgitating information based on mathematics and science isn't teaching them life. It's not even getting them ready for life. It's only a system teachers are forced to follow. The worst part is we wonder why taking the initiative is hardly done in the workplace or at home. People might be becoming more and more robotic as a result of a lousy education system. Students need more than just knowing how both subjects are part of life. They need to realize that mathematics and science are both subjects that will help them appreciate life better. Right now, I even feel that I can't appreciate trips to IT Park if I don't know mathematics and science at a basic level. I end up recalling my hatred for mathematics and digging out why. Again, it's got to do with a failure to connect mathematics to life. People will end up hating science too for that reason. I hated chemistry during the second grading, and I believe it's got to do because I want to learn, not just get a grade.

I believe the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines' continuation of the Filipino First Policy is a big contributor to the failure

It gets irritating whenever people say that charter change will destroy the gains after EDSA. I still believe that the EDSA Revolution of 1986 was a good thing. If it wasn't for it, I could imagine how mere criticism of public figures would make mountains out of anthills. The big problem with the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines is that it continues the Filipino First Policy by the late Carlos P. Garcia. Academic dishonesty tries to paint it as a good thing. One of the people I ran across on Facebook even believes that any good businessman should support economic protectionism as well as the demand to raise salaries while lowering the prices of goods. I wrote a rebuttal long enough with the explanation that salaries are part of the process of production. I try to explain it but they just simply laugh it off. Some even say that raising the salary will encourage economic activity. However, raising salaries unnecessarily can cause sticky inflation. Some of them dismiss my blog just because it's a blog. I start quoting my sources but they also dismiss it.

Some can go ahead and keep quoting the late Alejandro Lichauco to defend Garcia's Filipino First Policy. Some can go ahead and quote Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. However, action speaks louder than words. The fact that Singapore excels in academic learning over the Philippines is something. Before a certain crowd of people (such as Migrante International) throws the severely worn-out Flor Contemplacion card (she was executed in Singapore last 1995), they need to see the results. Why is it that nations would prefer to talk to Kishore Mahbubani, the founder of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) instead of Davde Jr. for advice? Seeing the way Singapore prospered makes me wish that the Philippine legislative would invite Mahbubani over. I do believe that Mahbubani did meet Davide Jr. at one point. I wonder how Davide Jr. would react if Mahbubani shot down the latter's claims about FDI? 

The irony of the Filipino First Policy is that Filipinos are almost always last. The Philippines could've started to learn better if it allowed more economic activity (such as the removal of excessive share restrictions in the FDI). Just imagine if even public schools can get adequately funded. Singaporean public schools are doing better than the Philippine public schools. The Singaporean education system is something the Philippines can follow. It's not enough to have K+12. K+12 will be useless if the same problem of caring more about grades instead of learning setting still continues. The irony is also that by caring more about grades over learning--grades suffer in the process when it comes to international testing. 

In turn, the Philippine education system has been left behind (read here). The late Lee Kuan Yew also recalled his experiences with the late Deng Xiaoping, in his book From Third World to First. This gives me a view of what's wrong with the education system:

Our visit to the university in Wuhan, one of China's major industrial cities along the Yangtze River, was a saddening experience. Some of the professors we met were American-educated. Although advanced in age and their English rusty, they were obviously men of erudition and quality. In the library, Ling, then a medical student, spoke to a young man who was recording an English-language biology textbook. She asked to see it and found out it was printed in the 1950s. She was incredulous. How could they be reading a biology textbook 30 years out of date? But they have been shut off for more than 30 years; having just opened up to the West, they had no foreign exchange to buy textbooks and journals. And they had no photocopying machine. It would take a long time closing the knowledge gap that had widened between them and the developed world. The Cultural Revolution had set them back by a whole generation. The present students, recovering from the Cultural Revolution, were taught with outdated textbooks by teachers using outmoded teaching methods and without audiovisual aids. This would be another semilost generation. True, the most brilliant of them would make it regardless of the disadvantages. But an industrial society requires a well-educated total population, not just a brilliant few.

It's almost very similar to the Filipino First Policy. It's ironic how the Philippines can brag to be a democratic country but its constitution is more outdated than China or Vietnam. Take note that both China and Vietnam are dictatorial countries under Communist rule. LKY highlighted the problem of the late Mao Zedong's policies. I'm amazed some Filipino protectionist apologists still quote Mao or even believe that the Great Leap Forward "wasn't Mao's fault". Okay, why not try asking the victims of the Great Leap Forward? Back on track, the problem with the Philippines is being so outdated. People who have less income end up going to public schools. Only a select few can really enroll in a private school. It's a shame that the public school system is hardly giving an education. Teachers are forced to use whatever tools they're in, just to make ends meet.

Some people can still keep thinking of what if the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. never rose up. Isn't that crying over spilled milk? There's no time machine to stop Marcos Sr. from rising into power. There's no time machine to stop Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. from becoming the 17th president of the Philippines either. Instead, why not focus on fixing the problem instead of brooding over the problem? Problems caused by the damage done during the first Marcos Administration could've been fixed with a better constitution. The late Fidel V. Ramos proposed charter change but it failed. I guess a lot of misinformation was done. Using Marcos Sr. as an excuse not to do charter change is using the guilt-by-association fallacy. Even worse, some 1987 Constitution apologists still have their toxic positivity believing that it's the best of the world. Their best source? Well, Davide Jr. himself or anyone who thinks like them. They better show that leaders in Asia are asking for advice from Davide Jr. instead of Mahbubani. 

Public schools are built on taxes. It's stupid to ask for better government schools when the government lacks money. Once again, do I need to repeat that FDI isn't about invasion but investment? Even the meanings of investing and invading aren't the same thing! With more FDI, the Philippines can start to increase salaries and soon enough, the cost of production may be lowered. Any attempt to lower prices while increasing salaries, under a protectionist economy, will lead to inflation. Have they even heard about the economies of sale? If there were more businesses, there would be more taxes. MNCs will still need to be registered and they will still need to pay more taxes. Sure, the economy did improve under the reign of the late Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III. However, the question is, is one term enough to really give the Philippines a better economy? We also need to ask what can be done to improve any policy that made the Philippines better. With more FDI, there will be more funding to start fixing dirty public schools, giving them better equipment, and the like.

It would also mean learning new stuff. The Philippine-based schools will have to learn from international schools. Why do you think the University of Economics-Ho Chi Minh City, a public school, has a very good standard? It's because of Vietnam's Doi Moi policy. The late Nguyen Duy Cong's economic policies allowed Vietnam to progress. It's not by protecting the local industries but by forcing Vietnam's businesses to compete. Vietnam, a much bigger country, learned from Singapore. What's the Philippines' excuse then? Is it because it's not Vietnam or Singapore? All I can say is the idea is very much third-world. The Philippines can be a great country if only it will throw away the Filipino First Policy.