Is Defining ‘Functional Literacy’ Problematic?

By Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas, Rosalyn Mirasol and Katrina Ninfa Topacio

The latest Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) results (2024) by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) have sparked controversy not only among education-related government agencies but also within academic institutions. University-based researchers who are involved in literacy studies have found the 2024 FLEMMS results rather alarming implications not only in the context of research itself, but also in its impact on communities.

The PSA board revised the definition of functional literacy (FL) last year, the first time since 1989. The new definition was subsequently adopted in the latest round of the FLEMMS study. The PSA Board (2024) explained that there was a need to “enhance” the national definitions and methodology for measuring basic and functional literacy rates to “accurately” reflect the country’s progress in attaining quality education.

The revision of definition was also in line with the government’s efforts to align it with international standards for comparability.\ The new adopted definition of FL is as follows: the ability of a person to read, write, compute, and comprehend. 

The revised definition removed the automatic assignment of FL on people who have attained an educational attainment of at least high school graduate (old curriculum) or at least junior high school (the current K-12 curriculum). The new FL definition also removed the contextualization of one’s literacy and skills vis-a-vis an individual’s life and community situation.

The previous FL definition adopted by the PSA reflected this important contextualization: “Functional literacy is a significantly higher level of literacy which includes not only reading and writing skills but also numeracy skills. The skills must be sufficiently advanced to enable the individual to participate fully and efficiently in activities commonly occurring in his life situation that require a reasonable capability of communicating by written language.”

The change in the PSA’s definition of FL deviates from the internationally accepted definition of FL as advanced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), first adopted in 1978 but is still being used today (Murray, 2017): UNESCO says: “A person is functionally literate who can engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his group and community and also for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community’s development” (UNESCO, 1978).

The PSA did not only revise the definition of FL in the 2024 FLEMMS but also piloted new data items aligned with the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) to measure the FL of Filipinos aged 10 to 65 years old. The PSA noted that the PIAAC, which was created by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was the “recommended” tool to measure FL as “endorsed” by UNESCO.

Indeed, PIAAC, particularly its level 2 descriptor, has been identified by the UN Statistics Division (2022) as the fixed level of proficiency for global reporting on functional literacy.  PIAAC measures adults’ proficiency in key information-processing skills, which cover literacy, numeracy and problem-solving, that are “needed for an individual to participate in society and for economies to prosper”. In fact, the PIAAC framework was developed to meet the “needs” of developed countries (Montoya, 2018).

The PIAAC is administered to 16 to 74 years old in the United States and 16 to 65 years old in other participating countries (National Center for Education Statistics, n.d.). It has been administered in 39 countries, mostly OECD member-states, during its first cycle between 2011 and 2018. But the adopted PIAAC in the Philippines was administered to Filipinos aged 10 to 65 years old, with the lower limit of the age bracket being significantly lower than that of those in the US and other participating countries.

The age bracket adopted by the 2024 FLEMMS is also lower than the stipulated target age of adults who achieved or exceeded a fixed level of proficiency in literacy and numeracy: 15 years and above, stipulated under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.6.1.

Note though that the United Nations (UN) Statistics Division (2022) appropriately emphasizes the need to further develop a survey that would meet the economic and social settings of a given population. It said about functional literacy surveys: “Functional literacy and numeracy are related to context, thus survey programs need further development in order to frame questions in a way that are meaningful to different economic and social-settings and could be more efficient to reflect population level of skills.”

Functional literacy is a complex concept that is hard to measure quantitatively despite the existence of programs and frameworks that attempt to grasp such competency. Things become even more complicated if the definition of such critical concept varies from internationally- and scholarly-acceptable understanding.

Removing the context that FL refers to skills that people need to effectively function within their respective communities and contribute toward its development is critical in understanding the essence of the concept that we try to measure.

One may assess an individual as being “functionally illiterate” if the individual cannot make inferences based on a given infographic or a piece of news clippings. But that individual may be functionally literate in the very context of his or her own community and practicing literacy that allows him/her to survive and live effectively.

Such is the case with our agricultural workers. Can we say that Filipino farmers producing palay are “functionally illiterate” if they effectively and efficiently produce the very staple that we have on our table amid worsening climate conditions and rising input costs?

Our surveys may need to be further developed to adapt to the socioeconomic contexts of the country to grasp the extent of Filipinos’ FL. The government should consider creating its very own survey program or methodology framework that meets the needs of the country in terms of its socioeconomic contexts.

We also propose revisiting the administration of the survey on adults’ FL to the appropriate age bracket as stipulated under SDG 4.6.1 which is 15 years old and above. The age gap between 10 years old (the current lower limit of the PSA’s FL survey) and 15 years old is significant in terms of cognitive development of individuals. Even the PIAAC, which was adopted by the PSA, administers the survey to at least 16 years of age but not 10 years old.

The change in definition of FL and administering it to younger target audience may have repercussions on how the country is achieving the above-mentioned SDG. At present, it may be even prudent to call what the PSA is measuring as reading comprehension instead of functional literacy. Nonetheless, we do support the exclusion of high school graduates (under the old curriculum) and of senior high school graduates (K-12 curriculum) from the automatic counting as functionally literate individuals.

Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas (journalism instructor), Rosalyn Mirasol and Katrina Ninfa Topacio (professors in English language studies) do research for the Research Center for Social Sciences and Education (RCSSED). The Center is the social sciences arm of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila <rcssed@ust.edu.ph>.