MANILA, Philippines – All public schools will be spend time mastering reading and critical thinking starting next year, every Friday, as part of DepEd’s way to improve the quality of learning in the country.
During the culmination event of the national reading month in Quezon City yesterday, VP Sara Duterte announced that the Department of Education (DepEd) was already crafting the policy for the “Catch-up Friday” measure in all public schools so that it could be implemented by Jan. 12, 2024.
Regular lessons will be delivered from Monday to Thursday, Fridays will be dedicated to students to catch up on mastering reading, critical thinking and writing.
Meanwhile, students possessing average to advanced reading comprehension will be trained in critically analyzing reading materials and would write their own outputs.
Duterte said this policy seeks to help “non-readers and slow readers.”
“The DepEd, particularly its curriculum and teaching strand, discussed this, and we decided that we needed to allot one day per week, when students and teachers will do nothing but catch up with what students need to master,” VP Sara Duterte said.
“This is our strategy to catch up as part of our learning recovery program because even as we’ve done all we can in the past, we could not improve the performance of our learners,” she said.
“We have all the data and the opinion of international experts. They all (indicate) that the quality of our education is not good and we need to start helping our kids learn how to read,” she added.
DepEd will be replacing the K-12 program with the revised Grade 1-10 curriculum dubbed “Matatag.”
After the pilot tests this school year, the new curriculum will be implemented in phases, first in preschool and Grades 1, 4 and 7 in all public and private schools starting School Year 2024-2025; Grades 2, 5 and 8 in SY 2025-2026; Grades 3, 7 and 8 in SY 2026-2027 and Grade 10 in SY 2027-2028.
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