THE Cordillera region has a high literacy rate, but many children and youths have dropped out of school.
The discrepancy showed up in the 2013 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media (FLEMM) survey results released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Functional literacy rate among the region’s high school graduates is 91.3 percent; 85.5 percent for elementary graduates; and 71.4 percent for those in elementary level.
Functional literacy is defined as a significant higher level of literacy which includes not only reading and writing but also numerical skills.
At the same time, the survey revealed that 33.2 percent of Cordillerans age 6 to 24 were not attending school.
The reasons the youths gave for skipping school were lack of personal interest, marriage, employment or looking for work and financial difficulty.
The survey, the fifth of its kind, gathered data on basic and functional literacy, education qualifications and exposure to mass media. Around 26,000 households in 1,600 enumeration areas nationwide were sampled, including 1,101 households in the six provinces of Cordillera.
Department of Education Cordillera Planning Officer Janet Abucay said the data is timely since DepEd CAR will be drawing up its educational development plan for academic year 2016-2018. (Carlito Dar)