SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian urged the Department of the Interior and Local Government to mandate local government units to establish local literacy coordinating councils that will implement effective literacy programs.

He reiterated the important role of LGUs in combating illiteracy, citing Valenzuela City’s example of conducting house-to-house checks to identify out-of-school individuals who remain functionally illiterate.

During the recent Senate hearing on the 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey, the senator highlighted that over 18 million Filipinos remain functionally illiterate, even after completing basic education.

The lawmaker cited data analyzed by his office from the Philippine Statistics Authority, which found that 18.96 million Filipinos are still unable to read, write, compute, and comprehend.

“This should not happen. The basic goal of education is to make Filipinos functionally literate. It’s non-negotiable that a student graduating from the basic education system should be functionally literate, but that’s not the case now,” said Gatchalian, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education.