SENATOR Grace Poe filed a measure that will institutionalize the “Abot-Alam” program of the Department of Education.

Senate Bill 960 or the proposed Abot-Alam Act aims to recognize DepEd’s program as a means to provide education to out-of-school youth and adults who have neither undergone nor completed basic education.

According to DepEd, Abot-Alam is a convergence program that is being undertaken by a consortium of various national government agencies and non-government organizations and institutions under the leadership of DepEd and the National Youth Commission. The program locates and serves out-of-school youth nationwide and who have not completed basic/higher education or who are unemployed.

Poe’s measure seeks to expand the program to include adults.

Based on the measure, a Barangay Abot-Alam Targeting System will be established to collect information and monitor all out-of-school youth.

It will be a database that will be updated annually and shall include information such as one’s name, age, location and learning needs.

The bill also seeks to prescribe the various modalities of the Abot-Alam Program.