Sitti crosses a forest and a river just to get to school.
What is it like to keep children in schools in the world’s most remote places?
BY Shituma Tajrin
This story was originally published on BRAC International. It has been republished here.
Three kilometers may not seem far – until it means walking through a forest and a small river that swells during high tide. For 14-year-old Sitti Radzan, this is a daily journey. She dreams of becoming a teacher, and walks this path from her home in Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost and one of the remotest provinces in the Philippines.
Sitti’s parents migrated to Bongao, the provincial capital, four years ago, in search of better work. She stayed back, as moving with them meant having to drop out of school. Schools in the city are significantly more expensive which her parents could not afford. Staying back came with a condition – to take care of her siblings and elderly grandparents.
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The choice earned Sitti the opportunity to attend school, the only one within three kilometers from her home. It is also free of cost. Sitti started her education in this learning center. Today, she studies in Grade 6.
This center is part of the Abot Kaalaman sa Pamilyang Bangasamoro (AKAP) project. The project brings into its fold over 8,500 learners living in marginalized communities in the BARMM.
Sitti with her friends in class.
Challenges behind classrooms
According to the Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey of 2024, 7 out of 10 Filipinos aged 10 to 64 can read, write, and compute information to navigate their day-to-day lives. Despite the higher than average numbers, parts of the country struggle to ensure primary and secondary schooling. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is one such region, coming into creation in 2019, after decades of conflicts and peace negotiation.
BARMM has faced serious challenges in both access and quality of basic education even while the Philippines as a whole has made remarkable progress in basic education reform over the past decades. Many barangays (an area forming the most local level of government) in BARMM do not have any formal schools.
Here in BARMM, only 1 out of every 10 students who began primary education completes junior high school on time and only 13% enroll in senior high.
Among all the provinces in BARRM and the 82 provinces in the whole country, the island province of Tawi-Tawi where Sitti lives, registered the lowest functional literacy with only 3 out of every 10 residents being able to fully comprehend what they read.
Sitti and her two brothers on their long way to school
Since Sitti’s parents left four years ago, 14-year-old Sitti stepped into a new role – that of a guardian. A regular day starts before the sun hits the vast horizons that surround her home. She prepares breakfast and gets her two younger brothers, aged 8 and 9, ready for school. On their way to school they walk through a forest and a shallow river. During low tide, the river dries up exposing thick, sticky mud that clings to their feet. During high tide, water rushes in. There are no bridges or boats, so incoming tide means missed school.
Using the same route for years, Sitti knows the timing of high and low tides. She usually won’t miss a class but when her siblings come back home for the two-hour lunch break, the high tide finds them on their way back, and they cannot return to class. Coming back home for the break, Sitti cooks a quick lunch except for the days when her grandmother isn’t feeling very ill and has their meal prepared ahead.
No matter how tired, she always manages time to do her homework and gets her brothers to complete theirs.
“Sitti is a hardworking student. I feel she has so much to teach us about life and dedication,” shares her teacher.
At only 14, Sitti has already given up so much of childhood; friends, play, free time, and time with her parents. She believes, once she becomes a teacher though, things will change. She will be able to help her parents, teach her brothers well, eat more meat and fish, buy new clothes, and move to a nicer house.
However, continued education for Sitti remains on the edge. Sitti’s parents cannot afford tuition fees in town and there are no secondary schools in the nearest three neighboring barangays. The learning center she goes to offers classes only up to Grade 6. It is also the only center under AKAP that has extended its classes to include up to Grade 6, considering the intensity of both the needs of the learners and the lack of access they are facing.
The AKAP project has established 131 learning centers, covering 62% of the estimated 210 school-less barangays in the BARMM. Each centre is linked to a public school (referred as ‘catchment school’) operating within five kilometres of the school-less barangays. Initially, the project ran classes from kindergarten to Grade 3, with some centers opening Grade 5 in 2025, to ensure continuity.
Sitti represents thousands of children living in remote and vulnerable communities in BARRM, whose futures hang in the balance. In BARMM, the share of out-of-school youth and adults among the 16-30 year-old population has been close to 45%, double the national average.
In the era of artificial intelligence and next generation internet, should fundamental rights like access to education be so far from the reach of children? Being able to go to school goes beyond just learning to read and write. It is the power to hope, dream, and shape one’s future. When children are denied that power, we don’t just lose potential. We lose the future itself.
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BRAC in the Philippines provides capacity building and professional development support to learning facilitators and teachers in catchment schools, schools division offices, and Abot Kaalaman sa Pamilyang Bangasamoro (AKAP) Regional Technical Working Group members. The AKAP project is being implemented under the Ministry of Basic Higher and Technical Education (MBHTE), with support from the Australian Government through its Pathways Program for Peace in Mindanao.
Written by Shituma Tajrin, Senior Manager, Program Communications at BRAC International. Supported by Janifa Bangcola, Project Manger, Education, AKAP at BRAC in the Philippines. Edited by Sameeha Suraiya Choudhury, Lead, Strategic Content, BRAC International. Photos by Lisa Marie David.