Legarda pushes functional literacy reforms, lighter admin load for teachers

Senator Loren Legarda, Co-chair of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II), urged education officials during the Senate Committee on Basic Education hearing on March 3 to urgently confront declining literacy and numeracy rates by strengthening teacher training and redefining functional literacy standards.

“What are we doing differently from before, and what concrete steps can we take now to improve literacy and numeracy?” Legarda asked, stressing that reforms must deliver clear, actionable measures that directly address learning gaps.

Education officials acknowledged that literacy challenges stem from multiple factors, including the 2004 removal of the developmental reading course from teacher education programs.

The National Educators Academy of the Philippines is implementing the Early Language Literacy and Numeracy program for kindergarten to Grade 3 teachers, but Legarda emphasized that stronger, system-wide interventions are needed to ensure that children can read with understanding at the earliest grades.

Legarda proposed the introduction of a functional literacy test for job placement, explaining that this would help identify workers who may be misplaced or serving only as stopgap measures, and allow the issue to be properly addressed.

She further emphasized that while the tools are available, there must be proper access and alignment of jobs to where individuals are most suited, highlighting the need for functional literacy seminars to help employees gain the skills demanded by employers and the modern economy.

Data from the 2024 functional literacy assessment revealed that 22 percent of adults aged 50 to 59 and 21 percent of college graduates were functionally illiterate, showing that the crisis cuts across age and educational attainment.

Legarda also raised concerns about the curriculum’s reliance on classical literary texts as benchmarks for literacy and stressed the need to broaden the definition of literacy beyond literary comprehension, to include practical skills required in daily life and work.

After raising the urgency of literacy reforms, Legarda turned to the burdens faced by teachers, stressing that effective instruction cannot be achieved if educators remain weighed down by administrative tasks instead of focusing on classroom teaching.

“How do we take out the load, administrative duties of teachers, not totally, just so that they could focus on teaching and not the admin stuff,” Legarda asked, underscoring the need to free teachers from excessive paperwork.

The Department of Education (DepEd) reported that a department order has already reduced teacher forms from 150 percent to 70 percent, with digitalization underway to further streamline processes and lessen manual reporting.

To complement these efforts, Legarda proposed that government programs such as TUPAD and internships could be tapped to hire assistants who would help principals and teachers with administrative work, allowing educators to devote more time to lesson preparation, literacy and numeracy instruction, and direct learner support.

She called for continued hearings to align curriculum reforms with practical solutions that strengthen both teaching quality and functional literacy outcomes. (30)