PAGADIAN CITY, Dec 8 (PIA) – The Department of Education (DepEd-9) has implemented a program to improve the academic performance of learners in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

In the press conference with the local media, Dr. Eugenio Penales, the chief of the Curriculum Learning and Management Division (CLMD) said that their office launched the Regional Learning Recovery Plan dubbed 'RAPID' (Reading and Numeracy first, Assessment, Profiling, Increase, and Develop) in all public schools in the region to improve the reading comprehension skills of school children.

Penales said that the Regional Learning Recovery Plan is the new name that was changed from the Regional Learning Continuity Plan that was implemented during the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease.

Penales added that in the meeting of all regional directors and superintendents in Zambales recently, Undersecretary Gina Gonong presented the data that region 9 is one of the regions that recorded low academic performance among learners for the past five years.

The Undersecretary's revelation of the data serves as a challenge to them because it is the mandate of the CLMD to ensure that the teaching-learning-process that happened in the classroom is in the right perspective.

"We crafted our Regional Learning Recovery Plan to take bold steps so that we can improve the performance of our learners. This plan will help a lot in addressing the learning loss of our children," Penales said.

He added that even if the teacher is good, but the child cannot read and does not understand what he is reading, he will be lost.

He added that Undersecretary Gono gave them a three-year timeline to address the problem.

DepEd-9 has started visiting schools to implement the RAPID program where they first visited schools in Dipolog City last week. (RVC/GCC/PIA - Zamboanga del Sur)