PROFICIENCY rates among Filipino students plunge sharply as they move through the basic education system, with the share of learners meeting minimum standards falling from about 30 percent in Grade 3 to less than one percent by senior high school.

This was based on data analyzed by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2).

The findings, drawn from standardized assessments administered by the Department of Education (DepEd) between 2023 and 2025, will be included in EDCOM 2’s final report scheduled for release on January 26, 2026.

Based on national key stage assessments, EDCOM 2 found that the proportion of students classified as proficient to highly proficient starts at an already low level in the early grades and becomes almost negligible in the higher levels of schooling.

Under DepEd Order No. 55, series of 2016, the department conducts system-level assessments to monitor whether learners are meeting curriculum standards and to guide reforms in education service delivery.

Using current DepEd criteria, students who score at least 75 percent are considered proficient or highly proficient, while those scoring below 50 percent are classified as low or not proficient.

However, a Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) study commissioned by EDCOM 2 noted that alternative standard-setting methods could classify more students as proficient, suggesting that the current 75-percent cut-off may be too stringent to realistically define proficiency.

In 2024, results of the Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment showed that 30.52 percent of Grade 3 learners were rated proficient or highly proficient.

This means roughly seven in ten students at that level still struggle with basic skills such as recognizing letters and sounds, reading common words, understanding short passages, and performing simple numerical tasks.

By Grade 6, data from the 2024 National Achievement Test showed proficiency had dropped to 19.56 percent, or about one in five learners.

The decline becomes more severe in high school, with only 1.36 percent of Grade 10 students and about 0.4 percent of Grade 12 students reaching at least the proficient level.

This translates to roughly 14 out of every 1,000 students in Grade 10 and just four out of every 1,000 in Grade 12 demonstrating higher-order skills such as problem-solving, information management, and data analysis.

EDCOM 2 attributed this pattern to the failure to master foundational competencies in the early years of schooling.

Nearly half of learners are not reading at grade level by the end of Grade 3, a disadvantage that compounds into an estimated 5.5-year learning gap by age 15.

International studies by UNICEF and the World Bank support this finding, showing that 91 percent of Filipino children of late primary age cannot read and understand a simple story.