Department of Education (DepEd) Regional Director of MIMAROPA Cherrylou “Teacher Che” Retia strives to strengthen Basa program amidst unsuccessful take-off in the pandemic to continually improve literacy and numeracy among all learners including Indigenous people (IP) learners.

The Basa MIMAROPA program was launched during the pandemic but was unsuccessful due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation and lack of unified effort Teacher Che stated.

“The Basa program was launched during the pandemic but it did not take-off successfully and the effort was not unified. It was only in between from one another.” Teacher Che said in Filipino.

The DepEd MIMAROPA is currently working on improving the program as it was found that there are more Filipino learners who can’t read and write than those who can.

Funding

DepEd’s School Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) will be spent on Basa programs, activities, and necessities to support learning plans and help maintain a safe, healthy and conducive environment in schools.

“Literacy is one of the mandates of all the schools in the country and MOOE, the maintance, and other operating expenses funds from schools can be given to support Basa Mimaropa program. We can use the funds from it and be implemented in all schools and all school divisions.” Teacher Che assured in Filipino.

Inclusivity

Basa program will focus in inclusivity which aims cater all kinds of school to alternative learning system, special needs education programs, madrasah program and IP programs.

“We must intensify these programs as MIMAROPA is home for our Indigenous People such and they need us.”

Impact

According to Education Development Center, 1.8 million students nationwide have benefited directly from Basa Philippines and 2 million more have benefited indirectly.

Furthermore, over 19,000 teachers have been trained and 10 million books and teaching and learning materials have been distributed by Basa to schools in the target regions.

After five years of implementation, 89% of grade 3 learners in Basa-assisted schools are meeting the Department of Education benchmark for reading comprehension in Filipino.

“What we’re doing right now is to make the Basa program the banner program of MIMAROPA and through this, strengthening is implementation.” Teacher Che concluded.