📚 EDCOM 2 Reports: 18 Million Functionally Illiterate Graduates

On April 30, 2025, the Philippine Senate’s Committee on Basic Education released a sobering statement:

Around 18 million Filipinos graduated high school without being functionally literate.

This revelation came during a Senate hearing featuring findings from the Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The survey tracks basic reading comprehension, writing, and problem-solving abilities across the population. According to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairperson of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2): “That means one out of five of our [high school] graduates cannot comprehend or understand a simple story. And that’s something we need to address.” He cited miseducation as a key factor, aggravated by insufficient funding and lack of systemic support. We trust that the government is working to resolve these deep-rooted issues. But while change at the national level may take time, we as parents don’t have to wait.

In other words, we have an illiteracy problem!

✏️ The Spirit of Trying Something

Former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” And that’s exactly what we did.

🌱 Aya’s Educational Worksheets Is That “Try Something”

When we noticed that traditional systems weren’t meeting our daughter’s learning needs, we didn’t wait. We didn’t blame. We tried something. We printed a worksheet. Sat beside her. Guided her every day. And slowly, it worked. What started as a simple effort to help one child turned into a movement that’s now helping thousands.

Aya’s Educational Worksheets is not a curriculum. It’s not a miracle fix.

It’s a tool—a simple, consistent, parent-powered solution.

It’s for those who believe that home is where education really begins.

💡 You Don’t Have to Fix Everything — Just Start Something

18 million is a big number. But your child is only one.

And one child, consistently supported, can overcome a flawed system.

So don’t wait.

Try something.

Even if it’s just one worksheet a day.

Because doing something is always better than doing nothing. And that small act? It might just be the difference that matters.