By Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian
Massive reforms in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) National Learning Recovery Program are needed to effectively target learners needing interventions.
It seems to us that, first, it is not reaching the right clientele. Second, it’s not delivering the outcomes that will help our students keep up with their grade level. For me this program needs to be reformed in order to produce the desired results.
While the DepEd was targeting to administer tests to 1.7 million Grade 7 students, only 53.69 percent were able to participate. Because participation in the learning camps is voluntary, only around 10 percent of learners needing intervention attended the learning camps.
Because of the lack of sufficient data, the DepEd was not able to effectively target and capture those learners needing interventions. Because the program is not capturing learners needing support, the allocation and utilization of resources is not efficient.
What we need to immediately attend to is the intervention program because andun ‘yung mga nangangailangan ng tulong. Sila ‘yung mga nangangailangan ng government resources in order to keep up. What we want is to use all our resources para sa intervention program.
The National Learning Camp Assessments (NLCA) administered to Grade 8 learners is not improving learners’ scores. Overall results of the 2023 NLCA results showed that while the national average for Grade 8 pre-tests in English, Science, and Math is 37.23, the national average for Grade 9 post-tests in the same subjects is only 35.74.
Congress is expected to ratify the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program Act (Senate Bill 1604), which would institute a learning intervention programs whose premises shall include well-systematized tutorial sessions and well-designed intervention plans and learning resources.