The world's fastest-improving readers? The Philippines says Harvard noticed

For years, Philippine classrooms have carried a hard question: why do so many children struggle to read? This week brought a brighter answer. The Department of Education said on 1 November that Harvard University's Graduate School of Education has recognised the Philippines after its reading performance in the PISA 2025 assessments — described by the government as the world's fastest-improving. The department credits its continuing push on foundational literacy, including the expanded ARAL programme, which gives struggling learners structured recovery tutoring. Test scores alone do not make readers — but a nation moving fastest in the right direction, on the skill every other subject depends on, is worth pausing for.

SDG 4 · Quality education — Mechanism: institutional program