THE DEPARTMENT of Education will use the findings of an international report that gauged the academic capacity of students in Southeast Asia as a guide to improve the quality of instruction.

DepEd welcomed the release of the Regional Report of the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics 2019 (SEA-PLM 2019), which was developed to assist countries to better measure and understand learning outcomes in Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Global Citizenship of Grade 5 learners.

The Philippines is one of six Southeast Asian countries assessed by SEA-PLM for the school year 2018-2019.

“Our participation in the first-ever cycle of SEA-PLM signifies our continued commitment to raising the quality of basic education in the country. Its results complement the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) 2018 findings, which we will integrate into our broader efforts to address curriculum and learning gaps,” the department said in a statement.

It vowed to decisively study and evaluate short, medium, and long-term interventions to further raise the literacy and numeracy skills of learners while supporting the teachers, using the insights from these assessments.

“We are determined to translate these international assessments into concrete and implementable actions, especially in the classroom where actual learning takes place,” the department said.

“Since the release of the PISA results, we have made progress in our campaign for quality education. Our efforts on curriculum review, teachers’ professional development, and learning environment improvement are continuously moving forward despite the disruptions brought by the Covid19 pandemic. We are grateful to our international and local partner organizations which reinforced our Sulong EduKalidad initiative and its four pillars of aggressive reforms,” it added.

“Together with our partners, and with a data-driven policy approach, we will carry on and confront the challenges of quality in basic education so that our learners and teachers will have the tools to conquer this brave new world.”