Literacy Workers

Why Literacy is important?

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Can you read this? Can you count how many letters are there in the first question? Can you write down your answer? If you can, good for you! You have what it would take to live a good life, and contribute to the wealth of the nation.

Literacy: a matter of life and death Literacy is life, as it is the set of skills necessary for existence and development.

Living and earning

Marina’s illiterate parents used to live a hand-to-mouth existence, roaming the mountains and often being mistreated by lowlanders. Determined to change their fate, Marina decided to learn. With the competencies she posses, she started to earn a living that affords to give her family a decent life.

Developing potentials

Fourteen year-old Maricel just learned to write her name at the community learning center in far-flung sitio in Digos City. Now that she knows how to write her name and things about health and nutrition, she has made one step closer to becoming a nurse. Making informed decisions
Indigenous people of Mindoro lamented that when they were still illiterate, they used to be quiet and aloof people. But after being provided literacy, they were empowered to organize themselves, make critical decisions on matters that affect their lives and participate in the democratic process such as election.

Contributing to society

Illiterate mothers of a remote barangay in Cotabato used spend their day gambling, gossiping and nagging their husbands. Then an NGO that brought literacy transformed them into responsible mothers and wives, earning family members and valued part of the community.

Averting death

On the other side of possessing these range of skills and competencies that lead to quality life for individual and society, is the dark side of illiteracy.

Illiteracy is death…literally, as in the father who accidentally poisoned his child because he could not read label that said toxic; or figuratively, as in throwing a good life away as a housemaid committed a crime out of ignorance thereby spending the better years of her life in prison.

Those were just newsworthy incidents involving illiteracy. Unfortunately, illiteracy is not just a form of bad luck befalling people randomly, it is a reality for 4 million Filipinos who cannot read and write. Tsk, tragic cases of illiteracy might just be a common occurrence, and tragedies could multiply by 4 million!

Literacy is the key towards a good life…and against meaningless and tragic death. Good for those who knows this truth… and better for those who act on this knowledge and multiply the values of literacy in theirs and others’ lives.

Literacy at work at SIL

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Literacy continues to be a part of the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics internationally and in the Philippines. SIL is pleased to be involved in literacy activities which touch the lives of adults, young people and children. Although the Philippines has a basic literacy rate of more than 88.5%, pockets of illiteracy remain. According to the Department of Education, there are more than one million pre-literates in the country and more than six million people are deemed to be functionally illiterate. Many of these are found among the indigenous cultural communities where SIL works in association with the Philippines Department of Education.

The languages spoken by a number of these communities have had no written tradition. Initial work involves linguistic research which leads to the development of an appropriate orthography for the language – an alphabet which is easily read and affords the student opportunity to use the skills they have learned in reading in the vernacular to transition to reading in other Philippine languages. SIL endeavors to serve these communities through literacy education – tailoring such education to the felt needs of the people using a learner centered, bottom-up approach. Our desire is that, beginning from initial literacy, the learner will develop a desire to maintain their reading and writing skills and that these will provide the basis for continuing education, benefiting the individual, the community in which he lives, and his nation. Learning is a lifelong process and some of the basic tools are reading, writing, and numeracy.

  • MALEI (Matigsalug Literacy Education Incorporated) oversees the on-going development of literacy and education among the Matigsalug Manobo of Davao del Norte and Bukidnon. SIL members helped facilitate the formation of this people’s organization. MALEI aims to include community education as part of their on-going programs for out-of-school youth and adults. Typically, this would include sessions on topics such as budgeting, leadership training and agricultural matters.
  • Under the umbrella of OMALRACDI (Obo Manobo Active Language Resource and Community Development Inc.), various activities take place in partnership with SIL. These include the promotion of literacy through equipping Manobos to become literacy teachers and supervisors. To date, more than eight Literacy Teacher Institutes have been held in Manobo communities, taught by Manobos. OMALRACDI also facilitates health care education programs through primary health care classes taught by a Manobo midwife.
  • Among the Tagakaulo Kalagan speakers of Sarangani Province and Davao del Sur in association with the Department of Education Bureaus of Elementary Education and Alternative Learning Systems. Beginning in the barangay of Lutay, an area which formerly has had neither formal school for children nor non-formal classes for adults, a program for children has begun where basic reading and writing lesson materials are constructed first in the mother tongue of the students, bridging into Filipino and English. SIL members are very active in this area and the program is spreading to a number of Tagakaulo speaking areas.

Source: SIL Philippines

UNESCO Call for Nominations

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Officials of the Ministry of Education (MoE) of Nepal met with the head of the Literacy Coordinating Council Secretariat (LCC) in their visit to the Philippines recently. The visit is in line with Nepal MoE’s School Sector Reform Plan 2009-2015 which aims to improve equity and access, quality and relevance, and effeciency and effectiveness of education focusing at the school and community levels.

The Nepal Education Ministry officials were particularly interested to learn  how the Philippines has implemented decentralization in education, capacity development at the local level, and planning and resource mobilization at school and community levels.

After giving a short background about LCC as a policy-making body on literacy endeavors, its secretariat head Dr. Norma Salcedo acquainted the officials on the various literacy programs the LCC assists and some strategies the Council employs to enhance  literacy advocacy nationwide. She also gave information on the literacy rate of Filipinos, including other literacy programs the government promotes to improve the quality of education in the country that would eventually gain benefit for the Filipinos – children.youth, and adults alike.

The exchange, though short, proved meaningful to Nepal MoE officials. As they believe regional and international experience on educational reform provides immense opportunity for their country to learn from different sources and to adopt strategies in the course of their reform initiatives, they consider the Philippines as one that has a wide range of lessons and best examples in education reform initiaitves which could be instrumental for their senior management to learn from.

The Nepal Education Ministry delegates also met with other officials of the Department of Education including the Bureau of Secondary Education, National Educational Testing and Research Center, and Teacher Education Council.

By Analiza S. Dy
May 27, 2010

 

DepEd Undersecretary and LCC chairperson Rizalino D. Rivera led the launching of the radio program aired live over DXIM Radyo ng Bayan and witnessed by Atty. Carol Orias-de Ocampo, chief of staff of the office of Usec. Rivera; Dr. Norma L. Salcedo, head of the LCC Secretariat; Ms. Liza Cuisia from the Philippine Information Agency central office; officials of the Department of Education Region X; the Philippine Information Agency Region X team; representatives of the National Economic and Development Authority; Provincial Government of Misamis Oriental; Municipal Government of Salay; DXIM station manager Ditas Gualberto; and officials/representatives of barangays with the lowest literacy rate in the 5th and 6th class municipalities of the country.

With the Philippine Information Agency as project implementor, the Literasi para sa Kaunlaran radio program hopes to promote the policy thrusts, directions, and programs initiated by the Literacy Coordinating Council and underscore the importance of functional literacy in the empowerment of people and in poverty and hunger mitigation efforts. More importantly, the program seeks to serve as an instrument of functional literacy.

Through the radio program, LCC hopes to convince parent listeners on the importance of sending their children to school, formal or nonformal; and to encourage out of school youth and indigenous people to avail of nonformal school placements and assessment programs.

The once a week radio segment aired live over DXIM Radyo ng Bayan in Cagayan de Oro City every Thursday, 2:00-3:00 p.m. starting October 14, 2010 will run on air for a period of six months. The regular episodes will be hosted by Director Cabahug-Aguhob.

Delayed telecasts will be shown on PARASAT cable TV 29 in Cagayan de Oro City every Saturday at 5:30-7:30 p.m. and in other cable stations in the five provinces of Northern Mindanao: Bukidnon, Camiguin, Lanao del Norte, Misamis Occidental, and Misamis Oriental including Marawi City.

Development of Five-Year Action Plan for the implementation of Belem Framework – copy

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The Literacy Coordinating Council hold the 2nd Workshop on the Development of Five-Year Action Plan for the implementation of Belem Framework on July 22, 2011 at Bulwagan ng Karunungan, Rizal Building I, DepEd Central Office, DepEd Complex, Meralco Avenue, Pasig City.

The Belém Framework for Action, the final document of the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI), was adopted on 4 December 2009 by UNESCO Member states. Philippines is one of the signatories to this International Treaty having recognized the fundamental role of adult learning and education.

The country believes that adults need to develop their abilities, enrich their knowledge, and improve their technical or professional qualifications or turn them in a new direction to meet their own needs and those of their society. Literacy is the most significant foundation upon which to build comprehensive, inclusive and integrated lifelong and life-wide learning for all young people and adults.

Given the magnitude of the global literacy challenge, the LCC deemed it vital to develop a national Adult Literacy Roadmap and/or a Plan of Action to support Adult Education and Lifelong Learning and to ensure that adult literacy rates are improved by all means possible by 2015.

LCC aimed to reconvene government agencies involved in adult education to:

  1. Gather think-tanks from the government agencies, non-government organizations, LCC members and partners involved in the education of young people and adults enables individuals, especially women, to draft concrete Plans of Action for 2011 to 2015 pursuant to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All (EFA) and the UN agenda for sustainable human, social, economic, cultural and environmental development, including gender equality (CEDAW and the Beijing Platform for Action).
  2. Engage stakeholders in developing the Five-Year Philippine Plan of Policies and Action agenda aligned with the Belém Framework. The ideas and possible action points were generated during the first meeting and will be turned over to the Secretary of Education for presentation in several UNESCO forum and Board Meetings to be convened for this purpose.
  3. Finalize the LCC Adult Literacy and Lifelong Education Road Map with clear goals and deadlines to meet this challenge based on the critical assessments of progress made, obstacles encountered and weaknesses identified will be the final output of the workshop.

Literacy Forum with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Local Government Units (LGUs) and other Stakeholders – copy

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September 26, 2017

Literacy Forum with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Local Government Units (LGUs) and other Stakeholders

The Literacy Coordinating Council hold a Literacy Forum with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Local Government Units (LGUs ) and other Stakeholders in Mindanao with a theme “Strengthening Partnership and Networking of Literacy Advocates” on June 1, 2011; 9:00 a.m. at the College of Law Building, Western Mindanao State University (WMSU) Zamboanga City.

The forum aimed to:

  • establish, strenthen and sustain linkage with NGOs, LGUs and other stakeholders involved in literacy work;
  • learn from good practices on literacy programs/community education and create opportunities for continuing and/or scaling them up through government-NGO collaboration;
  • map out current and emerging functional literacy/education needs that are not addressed and strategize on interventions to meet the gaps; and
  • create a synergy between the NGOs-POs, the government and the LCC where functional literacy/community education policies and actions are collectively planned, monitored and evaluated every year through the establishment or reactivation of local LCC bodies at different levels.

This is the fifth year the Literacy Coordinating Council (LCC) has hold its forum for NGOs, LGUs and other stakeholders. The Council has always found its dialogues with NGOs enriching and rewarding.

This year, The LCC, NGOs, LGUs and other stakeholders has work together for a common and noble cause-the universalization of literacy in our country.

The forum results in multi-dimensional cooperation – between communities, government, civil society and NGOs, the private sector, and individuals.

The five (5) previous events were conducted in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2009. The participants of the forum were the national government agencies; non-government agencies; local government units; leagues of provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays; state colleges and universities; private organizations; and civil societies.

2011 National Literacy Conference

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In celebration of the annual Literacy Week as stipulated in Presidential Proclamation No. 239 entitled “Declaring the Period from September 2 to 8 of Every Year as Literacy Week,” the Department of Education (DepEd), through the Literacy Coordinating Council (LCC), in cooperation and coordination with other government organizations (GOs), local government units (LGUs), private organizations (POs) and non-government organizations (NGOs), will hold the 2011 National Literacy Conference with the theme “Pursuing Community Development through Peace Literacy” at the Imperial Palace Suites, Quezon City on September 27-29, 2011.

This is in line with priority agenda of the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) for Calendar Year (CY) 2011-2012, which is Literacy and Peace.

The objectives of the conference are to:

a. raise awareness on literacy for peace and sustainable future among the participants;

b. share good practices on peace literacy for good governance;

c. reflect on peace situations and identify appropriate strategies and community intervention; and

d. develop Peace and Literacy Action Agenda: Programs, Projects and Activities for Community Development.

The following participants are expected to attend the conference on official business:


a. bureau, center, and regional directors or their representatives; bureau/regional chiefs and assistant chiefs; and  regional supervisors of the Alternative Learning System (ALS) and Formal Education;

b. schools division/city superintendents and assistant superintendents, division supervisors of ALS and Formal Education, district supervisors and principals/head teachers of elementary and secondary public and private schools, ALS coordinators and mobile teachers especially those from 5th and 6th class municipalities/districts and provinces included in the thirty (30) focused barangays with lowest literacy rates;

c. officers of government agencies with extension programs involving literacy or continuing education;

d. heads and members of non-government organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations involved in universalizing literacy in every region.

e. heads of local government units (LGUs), barangay chairpersons and kagawad members, barangayhealth workers, and other officers involved in the universalization of literacy;

f. heads of private/corporate foundations with interest in education or literacy; and

g. heads and members of academic institutions particularly those in-charge of National Service Training Program–Literacy Training Service (NSTP–LTS).

One of the highlights of the conference is the presentation of the National Literacy Hall of Fame Awardto Tagum City for being three-time first place winner in the Outstanding Local Government Unit (Component City Level) category in the National Literacy Awards. Tagum City is also an awardee in the UNESCO International Literacy Prizes 2011 for its exemplary accomplishments in literacy development through peace literacy.

It is requested that the list/names of participants be sent to Dr. Norma L. Salcedo, Head, LCC Secretariat at Room 413, 4th Floor Mabini Building, DepEd Complex, Meralco Avenue, Pasig City through telefax no. (02) 631–0590 or send the list through e-mail address: lcc@lcc.deped.gov.ph not later than September 10, 2011.

For more information, please contact the LCC Secretariat at telephone nos. (02) 631–05–79, (02) 631–0567, and (02) 635–9996.

DepEd Memorandum No. 182, s. 2011