Tuesday, February 19, 2008 More NGOs help needed to end illiteracy By Jane Cadalig
A LITERACY consultant is convinced participation of more non-government organizations (NGOs) in programs geared towards literacy is more helpful in attaining government's goal of reducing the number of illiterate individuals.
Dr. Minda Sutaria, consultant of the Literacy Coordinating Council (LCC), said the country needs more NGOs participation in the program of reducing illiteracy by 50 percent, as contained in the Philippine's commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
"We need more NGOs participation to achieve our goal of reducing the number of illiterates by the year 2015," Sutaria said.
"Government is doing very good in terms of funding literacy programs, but I don't think it has provided enough. We need the help of the NGOs who fund their own programs," she said.
Early this month, Sutaria said the LCC has organized the first NGO forum to gather more support from them in terms of developing and funding literacy programs.
The LCC, in coordination with the Department of Education (DepEd), is conducting orientation and information drive on the guidelines for this year's revived National Literacy Awards (NLA).
Sutaria rallied regional educators to focus more on determining the number on literate and illiterates in each region in order for them to compare how far the literacy programs contributed in the improvement of literacy in each area.
The NLA, which was suspended for the years 2006 and 20007 was revived this year, is aimed at recognizing individuals, government and NGOs who have implemented programs which effectively increased literacy in their respective areas.
"We are now chasing numbers, so we could have a basis in determining how effective our programs are in increasing the literacy of our people," Sutaria said.
It may be recalled the Philippines's compliance to the goal of reducing the number of illiterates is low, based on the Philippines Midterm Development report on the Millennium Development Goals.
