Nearly 19 million high school grads in 2024 can’t read – PSA
A total of 18.96 million Filipino students who graduated from senior high school and junior high school in 2024 cannot read and understand a simple story, according to data presented at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. INQUIRER.net stock images
MANILA, Philippines — A total of 18.96 million Filipino students who completed junior and senior high school in 2024 are unable to read and comprehend a simple story.
This information was presented at the Senate education panel’s hearing on Wednesday, with committee head Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian reacting to data presented by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
The PSA defined a functionally literate person as someone who can read, write, compute, and comprehend.
“If you look at the 2024 figure, there are 18 million students who the PSA detected that are senior high school graduates and junior high school graduates, but are not functionally literate. Meaning they graduated from our basic education system, but they cannot read, they cannot understand, and comprehend a simple story,” said Gatchalian.
According to the senator, this should not happen, considering that the very “basic goal” of education is for students to become functionally literate.
“That’s non-negotiable that a student who will graduate from our basic education system should be functionally literate — that’s not the case now,” he said.
Data presented during the hearing, likewise, showed there are about 24.8 million Filipinos who have problems understanding a simple story.
“This is the gravity of our situation right now,” said Gatchalian.
Assistant National Statistician Adrian Cerezo, for his part, disclosed that only 79 percent of senior high school graduates nationwide in 2024 are functionally literate.
“That’s not in your presentation, you have detected that 21 percent of our senior high school graduates are not functionally literate. That’s quite concerning — that means one 1 out of 5 of our graduates cannot comprehend a single story. That’s something that we need to address,” said Gatchalian.
Meanwhile, in terms of illiteracy, below is a list of top provinces with highest number of illiterates:
- Tawi-Tawi (67 percent)
- Davao Occidental (53 percent)
- Zamboanga del Sur (49 percent)
- Northern Samar (48 percent)
- Basilan (48 percent)
- Sarangani (48 percent)
- Western Samar (46 percent)
- Agusan del Norte (44 percent)
- Sultan Kudarat (44 percent)
- Lanao del Norte (44 percent)
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