Scientific Literacy and Socio-Educational Inequality: The Philippines in Comparative Perspective Across PISA Results

Abstract

Abstract Scientific literacy supports evidence-based decision-making, technological participation, and informed engagement with social and environmental issues. This study examined Philippine science performance across the 2018, 2022, and 2025 PISA cycles and compared the results with OECD averages and selected high-performing systems. Using comparative secondary-data and policy-document analyses, the study examined mean scores, proficiency distributions, learner and school indicators, and relevant science-education policies. Philippine performance remained nearly unchanged from 357 points in 2018 to 356 in 2022 but increased to 373 in 2025. Although the Philippine–OECD gap narrowed from 132 to 109 points, 68.4% of Filipino learners remained below baseline science proficiency, and only 0.2% attained the highest proficiency levels in 2025. Science performance was associated with socioeconomic conditions, home resources, reading and metacognitive strategies, self-efficacy, school climate, digital access, instructional support, and educational investment. Favorable learner motivation and school belonging coexisted with low proficiency, indicating that willingness to learn was not consistently translated into scientific competence. The findings emphasize coherent curriculum, assessment, teacher development, language support, contextualized inquiry, and equity-sensitive resource allocation as essential to improving scientific literacy.