AN ESTIMATED 5.58 million Filipino high school graduates in 2024 who are “not functionally literate,” the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) report.

The PSA released the figures to correct previous reports 18.9 Filipinos are functionally illiterate or those who can read, write and compute but lack comprehension skills.

“The PSA has no report, in any form, stating that the estimated number of functionally illiterate high school graduates and junior high school completers is 19 million,” the agency said per a report by Inquirer.net.

The PSA defines the “not functionally literate” group, which some reports inaccurately referred to as “functionally illiterate”, as graduates who are “basically literate,” or those who are able to read, write, and compute.

Based on the 2024 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), the 19 million refers to Filipinos aged 10 to 64 who are “basically literate but not functionally literate” due to a lack of comprehension skills. This figure does not exclusively pertain to “functionally illiterate” senior high school graduates or junior high school completers.

Before the 2024 FLEMMS, the PSA explained that the term “functionally literate” referred only to individuals who could read, write, and compute. However, the agency has since updated the definition to include comprehension as a necessary skill for functional literacy.(John Ryan Ledesma, CTU-TC Intern)

• Tags
• #Filipinos
• #High School Graduates
• #Functional Literacy
• #Philippine Statistics Authority
• #PSA
• #Functional Literacy Education and Mass Media Survey