Edcom 2 turns to youth for insights on education reform

MANILA, Philippines — The Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) has called on youth-serving organizations to participate in a consultation that seeks to bring young Filipinos’ experiences and insights directly into the country’s education reform process.

The initiative seeks to gather youth perspectives through an arts-based module that participating organizations can conduct with the young people they serve.

The module, developed through a partnership with the AHA Learning Center, the Philippine Educational Theater Association, Save the Children Philippines, and the University of the Philippines Ugnayan ng Pahinungod, covers key concerns such as literacy, school safety and bullying, socio-emotional and life skills, and gadget and social media use.

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Edcom 2 pointed out that recent findings reveal significant gaps in learning and learner well-being, with the Department of Education’s latest Senior High School Literacy Assessment indicating that only about 13% of the 1.4 million Grade 11 learners assessed were able to read independently.

Meanwhile, data from the Programme for International Student Assessment showed that bullying among Filipino students was substantially higher than the average among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, with 43% of girls and 53% of boys reporting that they had experienced bullying.

“We have the numbers, and we have consulted many experts, but this will be incomplete without hearing directly from the youth,” the commission’s executive director, Karol Mark Yee, said.

“Youth organizations are often among those closest to the realities young people experience in their communities. This consultation provides a way to document those insights, lived experiences, and proposed solutions and bring them into the policy process,” he stressed.

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As Edcom 2 explained, instead of relying solely on surveys, the consultation uses creative and arts-based activities to explore how young people experience issues affecting their education. The module was piloted last month with young learners from the AHA Learning Center.

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The sessions seek to answer questions that statistics alone may not capture, including what young people fear and aspire to, what prevents them from achieving their goals, what they consider most urgent, and which solutions they believe could work.

Edcom 2 said community-based referral mechanisms will also be incorporated into the sessions because some of the topics may be sensitive. Participants who require psychosocial support may be connected with appropriate services.

Participating organizations are expected to benefit from the consultation by gaining authentic insights from the young people they serve, using ground-level information to strengthen their local programs and interventions, and contributing to national education policy.

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Interested organizations, Edcom 2 said, may register through tinyurl.com/youthconsultation2026 or by scanning the QR code included in Edcom 2’s official materials. The deadline is Friday, Oct. 9. /jpv