Education initiatives for child laborers pushed
The Department of Education has committed to bring back dropouts to school with more child-friendly initiatives, a Philippine Information Agency report said.
Dr. Polohan represented DepEd Region VI Director Mildred Garay during the launching of “Libro Mo, Buasdamlag Ko” book drive of ABK2-Initiative for the benefit of child laborers, last July 17.
Polohan, DepEd chief of Resource Management Division , said despite the law on compulsory education many children are still not in school, because of poverty, where parents allow their children to engage in hard labor to augment family income.
With education costs escalating faster, DepEd noted that out of 100 first graders only 14 finish College, as the rest are into child labor.
“The low performance of schools is attributed to number of dropouts, which despite our vigorous campaign against it, the rate has never decreased year after year,” Polohan said.
She said DepEd, seeing how the ABK-2 Initiative has generated the cooperation and support of various sectors to educate child laborers, is also committing its involvement by deploying more mobile teachers and para-teachers through the Alternative Learning System.
The ALS is a strategy which is open learning for adults and children, in remote barangays, providing educational sessions when clients are available, where and how they should learn and what they should know.
The DepEd is also continuing with its Child-Friendly school system, not only for pilot projects, as all schools must be child-friendly so that learning becomes exciting, especially for those catching up because they have to work on some days.
Important also, Polohan added, is the involvement of parents and the communities, which should encourage their children to read, and guide them to use community learning centers for their assignments and research work.
Daphne Culanag, ABK2 Initiative project director, said their “Libro Mo, Buasdamlag Ko” book drive will benefit community learning centers especially in partner communities of Ajuy, Duenas, San Enrique and Estancia.
