SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian wants to ensure that the Department of Education will have the budget to implement the learning recovery plan next year in order to address the learning loss resulting from the Covid19 school closures.

Gatchalian said that programs for learning recovery should be designed to capture students who are struggling to master the competencies required of them to ensure the efficient allocation and utilization of resources.

He asked the DepEd to submit its budgetary requirements for the implementation of learning recovery measures. While the DepEd said that it can tap around P4 billion allotted under the Basic Education Curriculum, Gatchalian wanted to know if the agency has enough allocation to reach learners needing the most intervention.

“Since we are still recovering from the impact of the Covid19 pandemic, we want to make sure that there are funds for learning recovery under the DepEd’s 2024 budget,” the chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education said.

The World Bank estimated that as of June 2022, learning poverty in the Philippines is 90.9 percent.

The DepEd previously announced that it is implementing the National Reading Camp, the National Mathematics Program and the National Science and Technology Program to combat learning losses during the pandemic.

It also implemented the National Learning Camp during the end-of-school-year break of School Year 2022-2023. The program’s phased implementation started with Grades 7 and 8, focusing on Science, English and Mathematics.