Tacloban City: The Department of Education (DepEd) aims to strengthen its Project STARS (Strategic Techniques for Accelerating Readiness Skills) to improve functional literacy in Eastern Visayas this year. 'This initiative focuses on strengthening learners' reading and numeracy skills as early as kindergarten, laying a solid foundation for lifelong learning,' Gertudis Mabutin, DepEd Region 8 chief of curriculum and learning management division, told reporters Thursday.
According to Philippines News Agency, this development comes in light of data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showing that six out of 10 persons in Eastern Visayas are functionally literate. This places the region at the lowest in the Visayas and the second lowest among 18 regions in the country. The 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) results highlighted Leyte as having the highest functional literacy rate in the region at 67.9 percent, followed by Biliran at 66.7 percent, Tacloban City at 63.9 percent, Southern Leyte at 63.1 percent, Eastern Samar at 60.3 percent, Samar at 53.9 percent, and Northern Samar at 51.8 percent.
To improve the region's performance, Mabutin emphasized the need for intensive training from kindergarten to Grade 6 and the expansion of the school feeding program to encourage attendance among learners from indigent families. 'Feeding them with nutritious food will raise their learning abilities,' she stated. The education department also plans to strengthen its Alternative Learning System program, which offers a practical option to the existing formal instruction, allowing learning to take place anytime and anyplace as per learners' convenience and availability.
The 2024 FLEMMS also revealed basic literacy results, defined as the ability to read and write a simple message with understanding and perform basic mathematical operations. In the region, eight out of every 10 persons are basically literate, again the lowest in the Visayas and the second lowest in the country, following the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Leyte registered the highest basic literacy rate at 88.6 percent, followed by Eastern Samar at 88.4 percent, Tacloban City at 88.3 percent, Southern Leyte at 87.9 percent, Biliran at 87.4 percent, Samar at 80 percent, and Northern Samar at 74.9 percent.
Basic literacy rates were higher for females at 87.3 percent compared to males at 83.1 percent. By age group, individuals aged 20 to 24 years had the highest basic literacy rate at 94.9 percent, whereas those aged 60 and over reported the lowest at 61.1 percent.
