The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said at least 6,000 junior and senior college students from select state universities in the National Capital Region (NCR) will be part of the government’s program to pay financially challenged college students to teach elementary school learners to read.
The DSWD said these students, to be called “youth development workers” would be part of the program’s pilot implementation.
Interviewed over Radyo 6302, Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Rommel Lopez said the agency will launch the pilot implementation of the “Tara Basa” (Let’s Read) program starting Aug. 14 and will end in November.
The official said the 6,000 students have gone through prior training to tutor 63,000 grade 1 students with difficulty reading from 490 schools all over Metro Manila.
Each tutor shall handle 10 students, Lopez said, adding each tutoring session would last two hours a day for 20 days.
According to Lopez, the DSWD would give a cash aid of P235 to each parent with children having reading difficulties.
“It’s like shooting two birds with stone,” he said, adding that the department is studying to expand the program outside the metro.
“Secretary Rex Gatchalian promised that the new programs of the DSWD would not replacing the old ones, and that there would be improvements for such,” he said.
