IN a recent report, experts from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that more quality educational investments are needed in the Philippines to improve Filipino children’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores.
The PISA scores for 2022 showed that our education system is five to six years behind other countries. Our country ranked 77th out of 81 countries globally in the student assessment for 15-year-old learners.
We scored 120 points lower than the average in the worldwide study conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (IECD). Filipino students got 355 in mathematics, 347 in reading and 373 in science. Students from the Asian economic powerhouses Singapore (561) and Japan (547) topped the 2022 exams.
One reason for the Philippines being at the “stagnating bottom” is the small amount it spends on education, based on US dollar purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. Our cumulative expenditure of $11,030 per student over the duration of their studies led to a mean score of 355 in mathematics. This average spending per student is nine times lower than that of other countries.
A base level of spending on education gives a better chance of having an effective educational system. Cambodia spent the least at $669 per student over the duration of their studies, but its mean score in mathematics in the PISA was 336, which is higher than the Philippines. Meanwhile, Singapore, which spent $166,112 per student, achieved the highest mean score of 575 in mathematics.
“The PISA results are attributed to many factors other than education expenditure, but the correlation is strong until cumulative education spending per student reaches $75,000. However, the education budget should be spent wisely to maximize learning outcomes,” the ADB said.
What lessons may be gleaned from the PISA results of the Asean countries? One is that the PISA can monitor a country’s progress in educational investments and policies.
“This investment does not translate into an immediate improvement in PISA 2025. But it is a critical area of investment now for developing countries to make a difference in the medium to long term,” the ADB said.
Another lesson is that the PISA results can also drive governments to focus on foundation skills such as numeracy and literacy in elementary schools.
The list of lessons also includes the need for countries to study the PISA assessment to improve local assessments. The last lesson is on empowering teachers and principals to improve learning outcomes in primary education. The ADB said there is a need to visualize assessment results to motivate educators.
“One of the secrets of success is to gain the trust of teachers and principals by visualizing assessment results. Excellent data visualization can motivate them to take further action for student growth,” the ADB experts said.
In July 2024, research firm Capstone-Intel Corp. emphasized that the PISA results should serve as a basis to improve the education system and ensure that local graduates are globally competitive.
From June 18 to 25, Capstone-Intel conducted sentiment analysis on publicly available Facebook pages. It revealed that the “sad” reaction dominated at 46.9 percent, followed by the “ha-ha” emoji at 24.4 percent, “like” at 23.1 percent, “love” at 4.3 percent, “wow” at 1.1 percent, and “anger” at 0.2 percent. The report covered up to two petabytes of available Facebook data.
The PISA creative thinking test assessed the capacity of students from 81 countries to generate original and diverse ideas in simple imagination or daily problem-solving tasks.
Learners from Singapore, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia and Finland scored highest in creative thinking. Conversely, those from Albania, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Morocco and the Dominican Republic were the lowest-performing.
Time and again, this space has pressed for the need for more investments in education to raise our ranking, which is among the last four countries at the bottom of the PISA rankings. An easier goal is to benchmark the Philippines against those of neighboring countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said the Department of Education needs at least P10 billion to fully fund its learning recovery programs in the 40,000 public schools. But for 2024, the DepEd only had P2.9 billion parked for its various learning recovery programs.
He suggested that the shortfall could come from external financing or international donors, as well as other sources like contingency funds.
But it is very hard to convince our leaders to part with their contingency funds, which are attached to the palms of their hands like the strongest glue.