ARAL Law IRR signed
Credit to Author: Neil Jayson Servallos| Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0800
MANILA, Philippines — The law that aims to provide free science, literacy and mathematics tutoring to kindergarten to grade 10 students (K-10) is expected to go into full swing in the near future with the signing yesterday of its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).
Education Secretary Sonny Angara led the ceremonial signing of the IRR for the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Law, designed to address learning gaps among poor learners.
Aside from K-10 students struggling to pass examinations and grappling with proficiencies, the programs under ARAL Act are available to students who dropped out.
The law allows not only teachers but also education graduates who have yet to pass the board licensure exam for teachers and education undergraduates and other qualified individuals to serve as tutors.
Angara said the law would help the country improve its performance in assessments such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).
“This will definitely help us in the long term because students will improve their abilities, especially in critical thinking. They will be able to think deep and think about the bigger picture, not just specific problems,” he said.
While the ARAL Act, signed into law in October, partially satisfies a portion of comprehensive reforms needed for learning recovery, teachers’ groups have said the Marcos administration and lawmakers need to address “more pressing concerns of the education sector.”
For two straight assessment years by the PISA, the Philippines landed at the bottom 10 among 81 countries in reading comprehension, mathematics and science.
Test results of Filipino students in the two PISAs indicated that they were about six years behind in learning competencies.
The Department of Education (DepEd) is preparing for the next PISA in March with its new PISA Task Force to equip hundreds of schools of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – the organizer of PISA – as potential sites to get students to take the assessment.