THE ANGELES University Foundation-Tutorial Undertakings for Literacy and Advancement of the Youth Project (AUF-TULAY) contributes to national development through the provision of Literacy and Continuing Education Programs for the Out-of-School Youth and Grades 3 non-readers of Angeles City, in partnership with the Department of Education Angeles City Division of City Schools. AUF takes a proactive stance to alleviate poverty and improve the quality of life of the Filipinos through education.
Meanwhile, with the objective of helping families and students reach their dreams and goals through better educational opportunity, the Angeles City government through the stewardship of Mayor Carmelo Pogi Lazatin Jr. together with Go Philippines officially launched the first National Education Assistance Program (NEAP) under public-private partnership in February 2020.
A memorandum of agreement for that purpose was signed between Lazatin Jr. and Go Philippines’ CEO Andrew Alcid. Lazatin takes great pride for Angeles City in being the center of excellence for learning and the first holistic solution in the country toward ensuring the education of every Filipino. He added students that wish to avail can sign up for free. Their needs will be matched with financial institutions who are willing to participate in this program. It is open to public and private schools from K-12, graduate, to post graduate at no expense from LGU.
NEAP is Go Philippines’ pilot project in the country which aims to provide low-cost loans, scholarships and grants to Filipinos who are attending accredited academic institutions in Angeles City.
The 2013 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) covered around 36 million Filipinos aged 6 to 24 years. According to the survey, 96.5 percent of 74 million Filipinos 10 years old and over were basically literate and nine out of ten Filipinos were functionally literate (90.3% ).
This report provides baseline information on education and literacy status of the population 10 years and over. It is intended to be a reliable baseline to inform the formulation and monitoring of a wide range of policies and programs related to education and literacy and as advocacy tool for national policies and development plans.
The basic or simple literacy is the ability of a person to read and write with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect while functional literacy is defined as a significantly higher level of literacy which includes not only reading and writing 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. A functional literate person is one who can at least read, write, compute and/or comprehend. Also, persons who graduated from high school or completed a higher level of education are classified as functionally literate.
According to the report 68.3 percent of the estimated 36 million population 6 to 24 years old were attending school during the school year covering June 2013 to March 2014. The World Bank 2019 Report on Alternative Learning in the Philippines indicated that the Philippines has made remarkable progress in improving its public basic education system over the past decade, yet half of Filipino students fail to complete the full cycle of basic education. The World Bank Report added that illiteracy remains an important barrier to poverty alleviation, and lifetime earnings are closely correlated with educational attainment across countries and regions.
Senator Maria Lourdes “Nancy” Binay emphasized there is an urgent need to address these matters for developing countries like the Philippines and must focus on raising the functional literacy rate of the country to improve the socio-economic status of Filipinos.
Moreover, based on a report by the United Nations, the Philippines has the highest literacy rate at 97.95 percent among Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia. The literacy rate is 98.9 percent among females and 97 percent among males aged 15-24.