The Philippines remains with a low score in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) despite the slight improvement from 2018 .

The Philippines' performance in reading, mathematics and science remained relatively unchanged compared to 2018 when it first participated in the assessment.

For reading literacy, the country scored 347 in 2022 from 340 in 2018. The scores increased from 353 in 2018 to 355 in 2022 for mathematics, and from 357 in 2018 to 356 in 2022 for science.

In terms of ranking, the Philippines placed 76th out of 81 countries in reading, 75th in mathematics, and 79th in science.

The 2022 PISA study, which was released on Tuesday evening involved 690,000 students from 81 countries.

Following the country's poor performance in 2022 PISA, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III emphasized the urgent need to adjust the curriculum.

Pimentel stressed the need to do this so students can develop an interest in mathematics and science as well as instill a scientific way of thinking among the Filipino students.

"Our curriculum must evolve to meet the demands of the 21st century and address the root cause of this lackluster performance in the PISA assessment," Pimentel said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The Department of Education should realize the generational impact of these dismal results if not addressed immediately," he added.

On the other hand, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said the government should not lose the urgency in stemming the country's education crisis and accelerating learning recovery.

While these results suggest that the learners did not regress despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Gatchalian said the changes in scores were not statistically significant.

"We have to continue to focus on the recovery of the education sector from the Covid-19 pandemic which brought the crisis. We have a lot of reforms to push to ensure the quality of the education for every Filipinos," he said. Robina Asido/DMS