Are we educated, or are we just better ranked?

By Noel Galon de Leon

The Philippines’ improvement in the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, is certainly good news. According to the Department of Education, the country performed better than it did in 2022 and surpassed several countries that had ranked higher in the previous assessment. In science, the Philippines reportedly surpassed 14 countries; in mathematics, 16; and in reading, 18. The Department of Education presented this as an important sign that some policies and initiatives are beginning to bear fruit. There is nothing wrong with celebrating such results. In fact, we should recognize the efforts of teachers, students, school leaders, curriculum developers, and everyone who continues to work within our education system. But before we applaud too enthusiastically, we need to ask a more difficult and uncomfortable question. What does an improvement in international rankings actually mean for a Filipino child who goes to school every day?

A ranking is a number. Education is an experience. A PISA score can show an important part of students’ learning outcomes, but it cannot tell the whole story of a Filipino child’s life inside and outside the classroom. It cannot show how many students go to school hungry. It cannot measure how many children have no quiet place to study at home. It cannot directly show how many schools lack books, learning materials, laboratory equipment, functional libraries, internet access, or adequate classrooms. It also cannot tell us how exhausted a teacher may be after teaching a large number of students while simultaneously dealing with administrative requirements, paperwork, reports, and other responsibilities. PISA is important, but it is not the whole picture of education in the Philippines.

There is a danger when we make rankings alone the measure of success for an education system. When scores are high, we may assume that the system is already functioning well. When scores are low, we may assume that the students are the problem. Both simplifications are dangerous. An education system should not be judged solely by its position in an international assessment. We need to look at what is actually happening in the classroom. Are children reading with comprehension? Can they write clearly? Can they ask questions? Do they know how to evaluate information? Can they think critically? Do they have access to books they want to read? Do teachers have enough time and resources to teach them properly? And most importantly, does a child feel that school is a place where they can learn, ask questions, make mistakes, and dream?

This is why we need to be careful about using the word “progress.” Yes, there is progress if the performance of our students in PISA has improved. But progress reflected in an assessment must be accompanied by progress that students can feel in their everyday lives. It is not enough for scores to rise if an ordinary public school continues to lack books. It is not enough for the ranking to improve if children cannot complete their assignments because they do not have internet access or a device. A positive international report is not enough if teachers are still spending their own money on instructional materials simply so their classes have something to use. The real question is not only whether we have moved up in the rankings. The question is whether the learning conditions of Filipino children have actually improved.

We should also remember that PISA measures a particular type of performance. Reading, mathematics, and science are important. But education is broader than these three domains. How do we measure creativity? How do we measure empathy? How do we measure a student’s ability to communicate, listen, collaborate, create art, write poetry, conduct research about their own community, understand their own language, or develop a deep appreciation of culture? How do we measure the ability to ask why society is the way it is and how it can be changed? These things are difficult to place in an international ranking, but they are part of the education needed by a democratic society.

What if we are becoming too obsessed with being ranked and not obsessed enough with being educated? We may take pride in surpassing other countries, but we should ask what we actually want to achieve as a nation. Do we simply want to rank higher, or do we want to have children who know how to think, read, write, conduct research, empathize, and understand the world? A ranking can be a useful benchmark, but it should not be the final destination. When the ranking itself becomes the objective, we may forget who the education system is actually for.

There is another danger when we become too focused on international comparisons. It can push the education system to focus on how to raise scores rather than how to make learning more meaningful. We may overemphasize test preparation, assessment strategies, and measurable competencies while neglecting things that are not easy to measure. Teachers may feel pressured to produce numbers. School administrators may feel pressured to show results. Students, meanwhile, may learn to pursue the correct answer without necessarily understanding why it is the answer. When this happens, scores may be high while learning remains shallow.

We should also not forget the significant inequality within the country itself. The experience of a student in a well-resourced private school or laboratory school may be very different from that of a student studying in a geographically isolated community. Some children have access to books, computers, libraries, tutors, stable internet, educational subscriptions, and supportive learning environments. Others may have to walk long distances to get to school, share a device with their siblings, or study at home while dealing with numerous other responsibilities. If both groups are subjected to the same assessment, it is important to examine not only the results but also the structural conditions that shape their opportunities to learn.

So when we talk about the reading performance of Filipino students, for example, it is not enough to say that they simply need to read more. What books are actually available to them? Do they have a library? Is its collection updated? Does it have children’s literature? Young adult novels? Books in Filipino and regional languages? Are there librarians who actively recommend books? Do children have time to read without reading always being treated as a graded requirement? Can their families afford to buy books? If the answer to many of these questions is no, it is unfair to place the responsibility for a systemic problem solely on the child.

A library, for example, should not be treated as an extra facility. For many students, the library may be the most important source of knowledge available to them. Not everyone has a bookshelf at home. Not everyone has parents who enjoy reading. Not everyone has their own laptop or tablet. Not everyone has access to a bookstore. For a child without a personal collection of books, the school library can become their literary universe. So when a library has outdated, insufficient, or almost no new books, it is not only a collection that is lost. It is the possibilities that those books could have offered.

The same issue applies to teachers. It is easy to say that we need to “improve teacher quality,” but we also need to ask what kind of working conditions we provide for teachers. A teacher is not a machine that can continuously produce better results regardless of the conditions imposed on them. Teachers need adequate training, resources, time to plan, supportive administrators, manageable workloads, and access to professional development. If we want learning outcomes to improve, it is not enough to tell teachers to teach better. We need to ask whether we are giving them the conditions they need to do their jobs well.

For students, we also need to consider their entire lives. A child who enters a classroom is not simply a “learner.” That child is a person who may be dealing with family problems, financial difficulties, anxiety about the future, peer pressure, responsibilities at home, and many other experiences. We cannot separate academic performance from the social realities of these children. If we want better learners, we need to create learning environments that recognize them as whole human beings.

This does not mean that we should disregard PISA. On the contrary, we should take it seriously. International assessments are important because they provide comparative data that can help policymakers, educators, researchers, and institutions understand where we stand. The problem arises when data are used as propaganda rather than as a diagnostic tool. Rankings should be used to raise questions, not to stop us from asking questions. If scores improve, the next questions should be why they improved, which programs worked, who benefited, whether the improvement was equitable, which schools improved, which communities were left behind, and what needs to be done to sustain the progress.

More importantly, we need to determine whether the improvement is sustainable. A single positive PISA result cannot be enough to declare that the entire education system is on the right track. The real test is whether improvement continues in future assessments and whether it can also be seen in other indicators of educational quality. We need to look at reading culture, dropout rates, school attendance, teacher workload, library resources, access to technology, learning recovery, student well-being, teacher retention, the quality of instructional materials, and inequalities between regions and socioeconomic groups. Education reform is not a sprint. It is a long process that requires consistent investment and institutional commitment.

There is also a tendency in the Philippines to celebrate quickly when we receive a positive international result and to look for someone to blame when the results are poor. When scores are low, students are criticized. When scores are high, the administration receives the credit. But the education system is a collective enterprise. Success does not belong to one administration alone, and failure cannot be blamed on one group alone. Teachers are on the front lines. Students experience the system directly. Parents are partners in learning. School administrators run the institutions. Policymakers create frameworks and allocate resources. Communities shape the social environment in which children grow. If we want genuine improvement, we need to look at the entire ecosystem.

We can be proud of the PISA 2025 results. Any meaningful improvement deserves recognition. But I hope we do not become satisfied with a good headline. The true measure of education is not simply how many countries we have surpassed. The true measure is how many Filipino children we have given the opportunity to learn well. How many children have found a book that changed their lives? How many students have encountered a teacher who believed in them? How many children from poor families have been given the same opportunities available to those who are more privileged? How many students have learned to think for themselves? How many young people have learned to love reading, not because it is required for an exam, but because they discovered that worlds are waiting on every page?

Because at the end of every ranking, there is a child sitting in a classroom. They are holding a book. A teacher is standing in front of them. They have a dream that they may not yet know how to name. The question is not whether the Philippines will become number one. The question is what kind of education we are giving that child. If moving up in international rankings means that more children are genuinely learning, more children are reading, more teachers are receiving support, more libraries are being filled with meaningful books, and more students are being given the opportunity to dream, then we should celebrate.

But if the ranking becomes a reason for us to forget the child who goes to school hungry, the teacher who lacks adequate resources, the library without new books, the school with inadequate facilities, and the community that continues to struggle for basic educational access, then we have misunderstood what progress means. International rankings can tell us where we stand among other countries. They cannot, by themselves, tell us whether we are giving our children the education they deserve.

So yes, let us celebrate PISA 2025. But after the applause, let us return to the classroom. Let us enter the libraries. Let us talk to teachers. Let us ask students what they need. Let us look at schools in communities that are not often seen in national headlines. That is where we will know whether the progress shown by an international assessment is genuine progress.

Because the most important ranking is not where the Philippines stands in the world. The most important question is where the child stands among our priorities.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and educator at the University of the Philippines Visayas. He teaches in the Division of Professional Education and at UP High School in Iloilo. He currently serves as faculty-in-charge of the UP Visayas Language Program Office and as secretary of the National Committee on Literary Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). His poetry has been recognized by the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.