TACLOBAN CITY – The Department of Education in Eastern Visayas (DepEd-8) is prioritizing the full rollout of the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program this school year to address learning gaps, particularly in reading comprehension and numeracy skills.
DepEd-8 Officer-in-Charge Ronelo Al Firmo said the program is a top priority following results of the 2024 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), which ranked Eastern Visayas second lowest in basic and functional literacy nationwide. The findings align with DepEd’s own assessments in the region.
“Our focus now is on ARAL. As much as possible, there should be no non-readers from kindergarten up to Grade 12,” Firmo said, adding that the program will be implemented starting the last week of August or first week of September.
Earlier, DepEd-8 introduced Project STARS (Strategic Techniques for Accelerating Readiness Skills), an initiative to strengthen reading proficiency and teaching efficiency. This will be integrated into ARAL to ensure regular assessment and progress monitoring.
Despite Leyte Division topping reading and numeracy performance in the PSA survey, interventions remain critical. Under the ARAL program, struggling learners will receive free tutorials in their respective schools after the Beginning of School Year (BOSY) assessment.
According to Rex Briones, education program supervisor for DepEd-Leyte, ARAL sessions for Grades 2 to 10 will start on August 26, while Grade 1 learners will join on October 27, 2025. Learners will be re-evaluated at the End of School Year (EOSY) assessment, with those showing improvement exiting the program, while others will continue.
DepEd-Leyte has launched intensive advocacy efforts to prepare schools, visiting municipalities such as Alang-Alang, Carigara, Jaro, Tunga, and others. Leyte National High School, the largest public secondary school in the region with 8,500 students, has submitted its ARAL School Readiness and Responsiveness Audit (ASRRA), detailing its facilities, tools, and tutor assignments.
The ARAL program, implemented under DepEd Memorandum 64, series of 2025, follows the finalization of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 12028 (ARAL Law) signed last year by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The President reaffirmed his commitment to improving the education system in his 4th State of the Nation Address.
Out of 1.2 million learners in the region, about 300,000 are expected to benefit from ARAL this year. DepEd hopes the program will help bridge learning gaps and improve overall educational outcomes.
(CBA/PIA EASTERN VISAYAS)
Overwhelming joy and gratitude
THIS is how we should feel everytime we celebrate or attend a Holy Mass. If we only know what a Holy Mass really is, we cannot help but be filled with extreme joy and ineffable thanksgiving. If we do not feel it that way yet, then it’s time we do something about it.
What we have in the Holy Mass is what we may regard, if we are to be guided by our faith, as God’s supreme gift to us. He did not only create us, making us his image and likeness and given the charge to have dominion together with him over the whole world.
He continues to take care and to love us all the way even if we have been unfaithful to him. And this he has shown by sending his Son to us. His Son is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Blessed Trinity who became man.
Christ assumed all our wounded condition, becoming like sin himself without committing sin if only to show and give us the way of how we can convert our wounded condition into “the way, the truth and life” meant for us.
For this, what he did was not only to preach and give us good example of how we should live. He offered his life, assuming all our sins and conquering them through his passion, death and resurrection.
And that is not enough. He perpetuated this supreme sacrifice and gift of his to us by making his very passion, death and resurrection continually present up the end of time through the celebration of the Holy Mass where he himself gives his whole own self to us as the Bread of Life.
For sure, if we can only capture this reality about the Holy Mass, we cannot help but be overwhelmingly happy and thankful. Thus, the challenge for us now is how to train ourselves, involving our mind and heart, our senses and feelings, etc., to enter into this most wonderful reality of Christ’s gift to us.
Yes, we have to learn how to step into this wonderful spiritual and supernatural reality and teach ourselves to be truly amazed at what happens in the celebration of the Holy Mass. We should not forget that at every celebration of the Holy Mass, we are made contemporaries of Christ in his supreme sacrifice and gift for us on the cross.
It is this sacrifice of Christ on the cross that conquers all sins and evils in this world. We have every reason, despite our weaknesses and sinfulness, to feel ever confident, hopeful and focused on doing what we are supposed to do, that is, to do a lot of good in this world.
In the Holy Mass, we are invited to also join, in vivo, in that sacrifice of Christ. Yes, there is suffering and death involved, but let’s not forget that all this would lead us to that victory of Christ’s resurrection that takes care of everything in our life.
Indeed, we need to prepare ourselves properly before celebrating or attending a Holy Mass. We should know what is actually taking place everytime the Holy Mass is celebrated. For this, we need time and effort to condition our mind, heart and our whole being to capture this reality.
It cannot be denied that despite our weaknesses, mistakes and all that, we would be filled with overwhelming joy and gratitude after each Mass that we celebrate or attend.