THE Department of Education (DepEd) formally opened Monday the Reading Recovery Center at its National Educators Academy of the Philippines (Neap) office in Davao City.
The center is a continuance of an agreement signed by the DepEd with the University of Auckland (UOA) in New Zealand last year to improve reading among selected public elementary schools in the country.
The grand opening was attended by Auckland University associate dean John Hope and Univservice contract manager Sandra Guscott from New Zealand, along with Education Undersecretary Yolanda Quijano, Dr. Jeanne Aldeguer, and DepEd Davao Region Director Susana Estigoy.
The literacy program dubbed as the first in Asia intends to drastically reduce incidences of reading and writing difficulties among schoolchildren in public schools.
The Reading Recovery in the Philippines Project is a research-based literacy intervention that reduced reading and writing difficulties among children in New Zealand from across a range of linguistic, ethnic, and cultural-social groups.
The memorandum of agreement for the program implementation was signed by the government sometime in November last year.
Under the agreement, UOA will train Filipino Reading Recovery trainers and tutors selected by the DepEd. (SAE)