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Writer's pictureLauren Zhou
Jun 1, 2020

Spotlight on Educational Inequity in Mindanao


Article by: Leela Hasan

Visual by: Chiara Valenzuela


The Philippines is ranked as the ASEAN country with the worst education system. However, there is no region more adversely impacted by the poor quality of public education than Mindanao. Mindanao has consistently had the lowest literacy rate of any island in the Philippines since the 1970’s. In 2013, the Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media survey conducted by the Department of Education found that Mindanao had a literacy rate of 86.1%, and 72.1% in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). While the region with the highest literacy rate, Luzon, had a 99.5% literacy rate. The discrepancy in the quality of education within the Philippines has existed for decades. Even in the 1970s, Western Mindanao had a significantly lower literacy rate than the rest of the Philippines, 25% lower than Central Luzon’s 90%. The root cause of educational inequity in the Philippines can largely be attributed to economic factors and the disparity in socio political conflicts.


Financial concerns impact the South greatly as 40% of the country's citizens living in extreme poverty are from Mindanao, this is in part due to the Marawi conflict which exacerbated previous conflicts between the predominant 6 armed groups and the national capital region (NCR) which have destabilized the region. The fact is, students who come from low income backgrounds begin their lives already entrapped in the poverty cycle, and without a solid educational foundation it can be difficult to overcome. One of the contributing factors to this are primarily, malnutrition and a lack of resources which limit the learning capabilities of students. Additionally, in the Philippines, the teenage demographic, specifically males, are expected to leave secondary school to work once they are of working age. Furthermore, in the ARMM, government funding is inadequate. The student to teacher ratio in secondary schooling places students at an immediate disadvantage as they have less individual attention to learn with their teachers. At the same time, many students are placed at a disadvantage due to “ghost teachers”, which refers to teachers who are either unqualified or unpaid.

Local government corruption is another significant contributing factor to the lack of quality education in Mindanao. A 2015 survey of the Philippines reported that within the ARMM, the Department of Education is considered the most financially corrupt government agency in the region. Government corruption hinders not only the capability of the state to provide quality education to citizens, but it decreases the willingness of the central government and foreign governments to provide aid to the region. As the government becomes unwilling to give as much if they believe the capital will be misused. What is more is that the central government has already struggled and continues to struggle with gaining the peoples’ trust in the region due to the history of ethno-nationalist conflict between the people and state, which have existed for hundreds of years. The consolidation of power in the region is paramount, because of the conflicts between the local government, the various powerful armed groups in the region, and the central government have continued to wreak havoc in Mindanao.


An even greater cause is the internal conflict and subsequent political instability in Mindanao caused by alt-right ethno-nationalist extremists in Marawi. The conflict there is responsible for the displacement of 98% of locals, and although the conflict ended years ago, its impacts are still felt. The crisis had long-term psychological impacts on citizens, especially children, and caused billions of pesos worth of structural damages in an already impoverished city. This furthered the economic inequality of the city and its impact on education. The conflict displaced an estimated 10,000 school children, where many kids are being recruited from high schools to fight in armed groups. The predominant motivation for these child soldiers to join terrorist organizations is the financial benefit. Often terrorist groups pay teenagers who join their cause, an indispensable offer in a region like Mindanao where 50% of inhabitants live below the poverty line.


In conclusion, the economic, psychological, and social differences in combination with government mismanagement further the South’s struggle with education equity with the rest of the Philippines. Education equality is fundamental for citizens of the region to escape poverty as research proves the correlation between higher education and affluence. The probability someone with a high school degree is in poverty is 9.3% in the Philippines, which is an 11.4% decrease from elementary graduates. Ultimately the fact that only 1 in every 10 kids in Mindanao will complete their high school education feeds back into the overall lack of development and instability in the region in contrast to the NCR.



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