Culture & Entertainment · Philippines Bureau
DepEd to expand ARAL program after impressive first-year literacy results
The Department of Education is scaling up its Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning program following substantial reading improvements in its inaugural year. The initiative reduced struggling readers by 4.5 million while helping 2.5 million learners reach grade-level proficiency.
LSN Philippines ·
MAKATI CITY — The Department of Education plans to expand and strengthen the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program following encouraging results from its first year of implementation in School Year 2025-2026.
According to findings from an independent impact evaluation, the program achieved significant gains in student literacy during its initial rollout. The initiative reduced the number of struggling readers by 4.5 million while enabling 2.5 million additional learners to attain grade-level reading proficiency.
The ARAL Program, designed to address learning gaps and improve foundational literacy skills across the country's school system, has demonstrated measurable effectiveness in its target objectives. The strong performance metrics have prompted education officials to pursue deeper implementation and broader reach of the program's methodologies and interventions.
The department's decision to enhance the program reflects confidence in the approach's capacity to improve student outcomes nationwide. Officials indicated that lessons learned from the first-year evaluation will inform enhancements to maximize the program's impact on Philippine learners.