Over 440 cities, municipalities have local policies to boost literacy

MANILA, Philippines — Approximately 441 cities and municipalities across the country have enacted local ordinances or executive orders to boost literacy, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said.

Of these 441 local government units (LGUs), 202 of them formed Local Literacy Councils in a bid to boost education, the DILG reported in a statement on Wednesday.

The DILG attributed these initiatives to its joint memorandum with the Department of Education urging LGUs to enact Republic Act 12028 or the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program.

The ARAL Program is aimed at tutoring students from kindergarten to grade 10 in reading, mathematics and science for free.

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“Through ARAL, the learning recovery of Filipino children is no longer the burden of schools alone but a shared responsibility of the entire government and community,” the DILG said in the statement.

The department further cited LGUs’ role in the program in providing venues, mobilizing human resources and investing in education. /cb