A STUDY by the Second Congressional Commission on Education noted that proficiency rates among Filipino learners decline sharply as they advance through the education system. Edcom 2 noted that under DepEd order 55 series of 2016, the department conducts system-level assessments by key stage to monitor the basic education system, and assess the effectiveness of education service delivery. “According to the policy, students who score at least 75 percent are deemed ‘Proficient’ or ‘Highly Proficient,’ while those who score from 50 percent to 74 percent are ‘Nearly Proficient.’ Students who score lower than 50 percent are either ‘Low Proficient’ or ‘Not Proficient,’” Edcom 2 said. Using assessment data administered by the Department of Education from 2023 to 2025, the study, commissioned in partnership with the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, found that the proportion of students considered “proficient” to “highly proficient” begins at a low baseline and then becomes negligible by the time they reach high school. It also noted that when standard-setting is used to determine cut-off scores, more students could be considered proficient versus the current cut-off rules followed by DepEd, meaning that the 75 percent passing mark may be “too high” to define “proficiency.” In 2024, Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment (Ellna) findings show that at least 30.52 percent of Grade 3 learners were considered “proficient” or “highly proficient,” meaning that the majority of learners are still struggling with foundational skills at the third grade. This includes recognizing letters and sounds, reading common words, understanding short passages, counting on their own, or doing simple numerical problem-solving. By the time they reach Grade 6, proficiency has dropped by 11 percentage points to just 19.56 percent using data from the 2024 National Achievement Test, equivalent to one in five students being considered as proficient. However, the figure of those proficient further declined drastically in High School, with only 1.36 percent reaching at least “proficient” in Grade 10, and 0.4 percent at least proficient by Grade 12. “This means that only about 14 in every 1,000 students at Grade 10, and 4 in every 1,000 at Grade 12, can demonstrate skills such as problem solving, managing and communicating information, and analyzing and evaluating data to create or formulate ideas,” Edcom 2 said.