SERVICE INCENTIVES. Teachers welcome students at the President Corazon C. Aquino Elementary School in Quezon City in this undated photo. The Department of Education said Monday (Dec. 16, 2024) that the Service Recognition Incentive for public school teachers and non-teaching staff worth P20,000 will be released starting Dec. 20. (PNA photo by Joan Bondoc)
CEBU CITY, Philippines — To improve the reading skills of the learners in Region 7, Department of Education (DepEd-7) Director Salustiano Jimenez has urged the parents who have children under basic education to get involved in their learning skills.
Jimenez said this to help improve the Filipino learners in getting high scores and improve their reading and writing skills.
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According to the 2022 report of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) the Philippine students still had low scores in reading, math, and science.
The country ranked sixth to the last in reading and mathematics while in science, it ranked third to the last among 81 countries.
Because of this, Jimenez said that DepEd-7 was prioritizing on training and teaching the learners from kindergarten to Grade 3, because they belong to the first stage learners. He said that the moment these learners know how to read, their skills will improve in every stage.
“Ang luoy man gud kung mo Grade 3 unya di pa kaayo nga reader ang bata, hangtod na gyud na even moabot nag high school o college, maglisod gyud na og basa,” Jimenez said.
(What is pitiful would be if a learner reaches Grade 3 and the learner would still nor be familiar in reading, then this will be the situation even if the learner would reach high school or college, the learner will find it difficult to read.)
That is why DepEd-7 is making sure that the learners who are in first grade know how to read as early as August, so that they would no longer need the guidance of their teachers or parents in the future, Jimenez said.
“Mao gyud nay atong giayo og pasabot sa atong mga teachers ug parents nga magtinabangay ta kay once ma-independent reader na ang bata, maform na nila ang habit of reading. Dili na gyud ta magpaningkamot og pabasa. Sila (mga bata) na mismo ang maningkamot og basa,” he added.
(That is what we have made the teachers and parents to understand that we should help each other because once the reader will be independent, they will form their habit of reading. We will not find it difficult to have him read. They (the children) themselves would exert efforts to read.)
In the old school calendar, classes started in June, while in the present school calendar, classes started August.
Earlier this year, Education Secretary Sonny Angara expressed his plans on forming a Task Force on PISA to improve the performance of learners in local and national tests, following the call of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) to the need to produce learners who are “critical thinkers and problem solvers.” | with reports from Inquirer.net and Philippine News Agency