THE Department of Education formally launched yesterday the National Learning Camp (NLC) to improve the students’ learning performance and teachers’ skills and capacity.
Based on DepEd Order No. 14, the voluntary three-to-five-week learning recovery program during the school break will also provide “enrichment, consolidation and intervention sessions” for learners, complement learning efforts in the previous school year and provide a firmer basis for further gains in the incoming school year.
The NLC, which will be offered every end-of-school-year- break, is part of the overall learning recovery initiatives of DepEd to improve the quality of basic education in the country, especially after the pandemic when schools were physically closed and students had to cope with blended learning.
“NLC will have phased implementation starting with Grades 7 and 8 with focus on English, Mathematics, and Science. Schools are also encouraged to conduct other end-of-school-year-break activities for Grades 1 to 3 and enrichment activities in other grade levels to support learning recovery across grade levels,” the DepEd Order stated.
In addition, national programs on Reading, Mathematics, Science and Technology are also targeted to be rolled out starting the upcoming school year.
Learners who will join the NLC will be enrolled in one of the three camps, namely, “consolidation, enhancement, or intervention.”
Learners enrolled in the consolidation camp will gain further knowledge on previously taught competencies while the enhancement camp is meant to enrich learning for advanced learners by providing them with greater depth, breadth and complexity of learning competencies.
The intervention camp aims to support high-need learners who have yet to grasp foundational Mathematics and/or foundational English skills.
Earlier, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte told teachers to focus on academics to keep up with the learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, the Philippines was tagged among the countries with the highest rates of “learning poverty” in East Asia and the Pacific in a World Bank study that found that nine out of 10 Filipino children struggle to read simple text by age 10.
The DepEd has yet to provide data on the number of learners who participated in the first day of the NLC, with the communications unit saying they are still gathering the data from their regional and division offices.
