Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
This July 26, 2022 file photo shows students of Buting Elementary School participating in a government-funded summer reading camp. PHOTO BY MIKE DE JUAN
AS the Philippines prepares for the opening of school this month, we are presented with a World Bank report that 9 out of 10 children in the Philippines at late primary age are not proficient in reading. The report, "The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update," sent many online communities into a frenzy. And rightfully so. There has been a learning crisis in low- and middle-income countries even before the Covid-19 pandemic. In the Philippines the already sorry state of public education was exacerbated by more than two years of remote learning.