DepEd: Over 4M out-of-school youths and adults enroll in ALS

More than four million out-of-school youths and adults (OSYAs) have enrolled in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Alternative Learning System (ALS) program under the leadership of Secretary Leonor Briones.

In a letter on Thursday, Briones expressed excitement over the high enrollment rate for ALS.

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“We are happy that the enrollment rate of the Alternative Learning system has gone up through the years. The ALS is an important legacy of the Duterte Administration. This is the first program that President Rodrigo Roa Duterte gave his full support and special attention to,” said Briones.

“The numbers have shown that the Department has been putting concerted effort to reach out OSYAs nationwide and give them a chance to have a diploma in all basic education levels,” she added.

Based on the report of Assistant Secretary for Alternative Learning System G.H. Ambat, the number of enrollments in the current administration is 80.32% higher than the previous two administrations on the annual average.

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According to DepEd, 288 public schools and two private schools from 10 regions are already implementing the ALS-Senior High School program to provide more opportunities to OSYAs to elevate their professional careers in the future.

It was learned that in 2019, DepEd Region V launched the pilot implementation of the ALS-SHS program in four schools.

After two years, 62 students graduated from their respective courses and obtained their diplomas.

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DepEd: Over 4M out-of-school youths and adults enroll in ALS

It was also mentioned that through collaboration with UNESCO Jakarta and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) Philippines, the country has developed and launched new K-to-12 aligned learning modules.

They said the project would address the need to build 21st-century skills in learners and fill the gap with updated learning resources for ALS students in the coming years.

DepEd also emphasized improving those who passed the Presentation Portfolio Assessment (PPA), where 71.42% of the qualifiers from the 2019-2020 School Year passed the said assessment while 87.55% passed the 2020-2021 School Year for Elementary Level.

On the other hand, 83.56% of the qualifiers from School Year 2019-2022 succeeded in PPA, while 93.51% of the qualifiers from School Year 2020-2021 received their Junior High School Level certificate.

On December 23, 2020, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed Republic Act No. 11510, which strengthens the ALS program and develops the Bureau of Alternative Learning System (BALS) to ensure that no student is left behind by providing a parallel learning system for non-formal education.

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