He said that while the key to a nation’s future is the education of its youth, the NAT results “leave wanting this promise of a bright future.” In Central Visayas, which includes Cebu City, graduating high school students garnered an average score of only 52.2 percent.

Conclusions, Labella said, include poor reading comprehension as a major source of learning deficiency. Among the recommendations is emphasis on whole language reading and basic text comprehension. A decline in reading comprehension, he said, also results to a decline in learning in other areas, particularly on taking on complex formulas and ideas and numerical or non-numerical problem solving, because they all begin with “adequate understanding of a given text.”

Crisis 
Labella considered the situation a “brewing crisis for the future generations of Filipinos,” particularly because of a Philippine Informal Reading Inventory report covering this school year that indicated “very high percentages” of so-called frustrated readers (slow readers or non-readers) for grades one and two pupils.

“Reading is one of the most essential building blocks of literacy and is a significant skill that enriches an individual’s mind,” he said. This, he said, has implications on a child’s level of participation in society later on because “most readers are found to be inclined to be active in community, engaged in noble causes, and are well-informed of their rights and responsibilities.”

“Even under the Internet era, a library full of books is still the best starting point, especially for primary students in public schools to learn the art and science of reading,” he said.

Aside from the request to DepEd, Labella also asked concerned government units and the private sector to help make books readily accessible to public schoolchildren.