VICE President-elect and incoming Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio will have a difficult time addressing the educational crisis, political scientist Cleve Arguelles, who teaches at De La Salle University, said.

“I think she will really have a very difficult time because we are currently in the midst of an education crisis,” she said.

She said that aside from the persistent problems of backlogs in facilities in public schools, “we also have a learning problem.”

Arguelles added that Duterte-Carpio will also face challenges in dealing with poor student performance in math, science, and reading comprehension.

A World Bank report published last year said that bullying and health problems like malnutrition are associated with the low performance of Filipino students on the multilateral bank’s math, science, and reading learning examinations.

In the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment, the Philippines was ranked worst in reading comprehension among 79 countries and economies.