The Philippines is undergoing an education crisis. 24 million Filipinos aged 10-64 are functionally illiterate, with 5.8 million being basically illiterate. The World Bank reports that 91% of Filipino children aged 10 struggle to read simple text, a rate that has been worsened by the Covid 19 pandemic.
The article gives further detail and reasons: “Poverty and child labor are significant contributors to illiteracy with 678,000 (62%) of 1.1 million working children in 2023 being engaged in hazardous work. Early pregnancies also disrupt education with a 35% surge in live births among girls under 15.”