SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian on Saturday stressed the need for massive reforms in the Department of Education’s National Learning Recovery Program (NLRP) 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,” said Gatchalian, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Basic Education.

While the DepEd was targeting to administer tests to 1.7 million Grade 7 students, only 53.69% were able to participate.

Because participation in the learning camps is voluntary, only around 10% of learners needing intervention attended the learning camps.

Gatchalian flagged that because of the lack of sufficient data, the DepEd was not able to effectively target and capture those learners needing interventions.

The lawmaker added that 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,” Gatchalian added.

The senator also flagged that the National Learning Camp Assessments 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.

Gatchalian further added that Congress is expected to ratify the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program Act, which would institute a learning intervention programs whose premises shall include well-systematized tutorial sessions and well-designed intervention plans and learning resources.