DepEd ‘Catch-Up’ a band-aid solution

The Department of Education (DepEd) issued a memorandum on Jan. 10 that ordered the implementation of the “Catch-Up Fridays” learning intervention program in schools. The first half of the program is monickered “Drop Everything and Read” while the latter half focuses on values, peace, and health education. This seems to be a response to the recently released results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) that ranked us as one of the poorest performing countries when it comes to reading, science, and mathematics. However, by giving teachers and school personnel only two days to prepare before its implementation, this seems to be more of a well-meaning, knee-jerk reaction to a problem rather than a well-thought-out solution.

How we know that this is only a band-aid solution? 1) It was ordered and implemented in the middle of the school year when activities are already ongoing; 2) it was ordered on a Wednesday to be implemented on Friday; 3) teachers had no idea this program existed prior to being ordered to implement it.

In response to teachers’ concerns about how this program can be properly implemented, DepEd’s Curriculum Strand, through DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa, highlighted that the memo stated that all Fridays of January be devoted only to the “Drop Everything and Read” first. With the program having already started and teacher training still scheduled for Jan. 26, it seems the department is taking the name of the program “Drop Everything and Read” quite literally, using it not just as a title but also as its primary instruction as well.

On paper, the program sounds refreshing: a nongraded day just devoted to learning and reading. The guidelines make suggestions for creative activities and encourages teachers to collaborate on best practices. The realist in me, however, knows that the ideals of the program won’t be realized without significant infrastructure investment.

First, we need proper needs assessment to ensure that our reading intervention is appropriate. The results of Pisa strongly suggest that we cannot base a student’s reading proficiency level merely on their grade level. We need to invest time and money into a nationwide assessment of students’ reading capabilities and challenges. We need to know which interventions fit which students. There is no point in enforcing a read-a-thon to students who struggle to read the provided books. There is no use in having students identify main ideas of a story when they still struggle with phonics. Conversely, flashcards are a waste of time if students struggle with understanding the meaning of a paragraph rather than mastering individual words.

Second, it is impossible to tailor activities to the varying reading proficiencies and deficits in a mega-sized classroom. Our teacher-student ratio hinders this. The lack of classrooms hinders this. The longstanding problems of classroom and teacher shortage should be addressed as this can alleviate all sorts of learning problems, including reading. Ignoring infrastructure problems is setting up teachers and students to both fail.

Third, motivation factors are left largely ignored in terms of how we understand our reading problem. Motivation is not only addressed by “fun” activities; it should go much deeper. Hungry students are not motivated to read. Students who are tired, lack sleep, and feel unsafe will not be motivated to read. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggest that we need to address students’ basic needs first before we can motivate them to learn.

The three points above require long-term investment. We need to invest the appropriate budget. We also need to invest in our people—the teachers. We also need to invest time. Such interventions cannot be done in a rush. Rushing a program like this is faulty experimental design. If the intervention did not bring out the hoped-for outcome, how do we know that the program itself is at fault and not a matter of inconsistent implementation? How long will “Catch-Up Fridays” run for and how long until we expect to achieve improvement in reading skills? Are there even appropriate evaluation measures in place? This is where good education research becomes important.

It is time for us to change our policy mindset. We shouldn’t rush into programs as a reactionary response and instead think more long-term. If “Catch-Up Fridays” truly is the solution, then give it the time and resources it deserves. Allow it to accommodate systemic factors that have hindered our students from learning to read: grossly inadequate infrastructure, poor basic needs of students, and lack of teachers and quality teacher training. As long as we ignore longstanding issues in Philippine education and simply enforce band-aid solutions willy-nilly, the band-aid will just keep falling off and we’re back to where we started.

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aatuazon@up.edu.ph