The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has conducted the 2024 Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), which aims to gather data as bases in determining the state of literacy in the country. The 2024 FLEMMS adopts a revised operational definition and methodology for measuring basic and functional literacy as approved by the PSA Board through Resolution No. 13, Series of 2024.

Basic literacy is defined as the ability of a person to read and write a simple message in any language or dialect with understanding, and to compute or perform basic mathematical operations.

Functional literacy is the ability of a person to read, write, compute and comprehend.  In addition to the basic literacy skills, functional literacy includes higher level of comprehension skills, such as integrating two or more pieces of information and making inferences based on the given information.

Basic literacy rate is computed for individuals 5 years old and over, while functional literacy rate is computed for individuals 10 to 64 years old.

The Basic literacy rate is highest in Ilocos Sur

Based on the 2024 FLEMMS results, 89.6 percent or about 9 out of 10 Filipinos in Region I aged 5 years and over had basic literacy. Ilocos Sur recorded the highest basic literacy rate among the provinces at 93.4 percent, followed by Ilocos Norte at 89.7 percent. The lowest basic literacy rate was observed in Pangasinan at 88.7 percent, followed by La Union at 89.2 percent.

In terms of sex, females aged 5 years old and over showed a higher basic literacy rate at 90.1 percent compared to males on the same age range at 89.0 percent. By age group, basic literacy rate was highest for age group 25 to 29 years old and lowest for the oldest (60 years old and over) and youngest (5-9 years old) age groups.

The functional literacy rate is highest in La Union

The functional literacy rate in Region I was registered at 64.3 percent or about 6 out of 10 individuals aged 10 to 64 years were functionally literate. By province, La Union recorded the highest at 71.5 percent, followed by Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte. Meanwhile, Pangasinan had the lowest rate at 62.3 percent.

 

Similar to the basic literacy rate, females showed a higher functional literacy rate at 68.8 percent compared to males at 60.0 percent. Among age groups, individuals aged 20 to 24 years recorded the highest functional literacy rate at 73.3 percent, while those aged 60 and over had the lowest rate at 51.3 percent.

The gap between basic literacy and functional literacy was highest in the age group 50 to 59 years

In Region I, the difference between the basic and functional literacy rate represents the percentage of individuals aged 10 to 64 years who are basic literate but with comprehension difficulty.

For 10 to 64 years old, basic literacy rate is 93.3%, while functional literacy rate is 64.3 percent, showing a gap of 29 percentage points. This indicates that, for every 100 individuals aged 10 to 64 years who can read, write, and compute, 31 individuals have comprehension difficulty.

The gap between basic literacy and functional literacy was highest in age group 50 to 59 years. This means that, for every 100 individuals who can read, write and compute, around 38 have comprehension difficulty.
 

SGD. ATTY. SHEILA O. DE GUZMAN
Regional Director, RSSO 01