Philippines' Ranking in PISA 2018

The answer may have nothing to do with what's taking place in classrooms. The answer may have to do with what had taken place even before children stepped into schools. It may have to do with IQ, IQ being the innate ability of people to manage all things cognitive and physical. This is the implication of a study done by a team of scientists from John Hopkins University.

This study discovered a correlation between the incidence of exposure to infectious diseases and parasitism on one hand, and IQ on the other. Regions where this incidence is high are also the regions where the general IQ of people are low. If you were to produce a map to describe the distribution of each, and if you were to put one map on top of the other, the match and fit are almost perfect for regions with low IQ.

The doctor (whose name escapes me now) described how infections and parasitism and IQ became correlated. The intervening mechanism which produced this correlation is the body's immune system. Children are most vulnerable to infectious diseases and parasites when they are between 0 and 6 years old. This is why it's been the national program of many nations to get their kids inoculated early.

Unfortunately, not all nations are able to manage their inoculation or vaccination programs effectively. Why? Well, because they are poor and also because there are regions in the world that are just naturally abundant in organisms that bring infectious diseases. Many of these countries are found in Central Africa.

When the body became infected by viruses, bacteria, worms, etc., the first organ system to be activated is the immune system. The immune system kicks in. It activates an army of different cells to destroy the intruders. It also activates many physical processes to do the same, like fever, chilling, phlegm formation, etc. But these require energy. The body needs energy to do this. That energy is supplied by the energy molecule of the body which is the ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate). ATP is the energy molecule of all living things.

Because the human body is just truly fantastic, the body of a kid succeeds to fight off the infection. Many of these kids did, in fact, survive those infections. But that success came with a cost.

Because the ages between 0 and 6 years are also the time when the rapid development of the nervous system takes place, the body was not able to develop the nervous system optimally. Much of the energy molecule was devoted to the immune system. Because so much must be devoted to fight off infections, so few was left to develop the nervous system. The result is a less than optimal development of the nervous system. The result is a less than optimal development of the nervous system during the most critical stage of its formation. This consequence reveals itself in reduced IQ.

When we speak about infections, these are not just infections that come from viruses, bacteria and mosquitoes. Parasitic worms are also infectious organisms. Tape worms, pin worms, hook worms, ascariasis, etc. The Philippines possibly scores poorly in inoculation programs and programs to prevent parasitic worm infections.

When I was a kid, I sometimes played with kids who had worms. They were severely infected by worms. I could tell that because I saw worms crawling out of their bottoms. I saw mothers and kids huddled inside dirty toilets. Moms guiding their kids' bottoms to the toilet bowl.

When the worms left the kid's intestines, they left and fell to the bowl like rain.