US sends DepEd P27-M in school supplies for Bicol region
MANILA, Philippines — The United States has donated P27 million ($489,000) worth of school supplies to the Bicol region as face-to-face classes resume after two years of distance learning due to the pandemic.
It is said to be the first batch of learning materials the Philippines will receive from the US for this school year.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) gave over 540,000 “early grade reading materials” to the Department of Education in the Bicol Region under USAID’s Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (ABC+) project.
The handover ceremony held August 22 was attended by officials from both agencies and representatives from the Sto. Domingo Central School and Salvacion Elementary School in Albay.
“We are working with DepEd so that children who are returning to school have access to age and context-appropriate learning resources,” USAID Philippines Education Director Dr. Thomas LeBlanc said.
USAID’s ABC+ project aims to distribute over 1.2 million early education reading materials across 7,000 public schools in Bicol, Western Visayas, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao within the next few months.
The project is eyeing to reach 1.2 million Filipino children. The ABC+ project value is estimated to total P63 million ($1.123 million).
The US will be donating picture books, storybooks, and leveled readers written in English and Filipino “to address gaps in the reading practices of young learners and help students in kindergarten through Grade 3 develop foundational reading skills.”
READ: Philippines needs more investments in school infrastructure – PIDS
According to the 2022 joint report by the World Bank, the United Nations (UN) Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the Philippines learning poverty rate stood at 90.9% in 2019.
This means that 90.9% of Filipino children do not know how to read simple text with comprehension by age 10.
READ: Widening learning gap a problem, says ADB
Filipino children returned to having face-to-face classes this year, over two years since educational institutions temporarily closed in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19. However, the online distance learning program adopted due to the pandemic also widened the country's learning gap. — Kaycee Valmonte
- Latest
- Trending
