Tutoring service reports learning gaps in K-to-12 students

A tutoring service reported gaps between students’ skills and their grade level upon assessment.

“We are seeing 2–3 years learning gap in both literacy and numeracy skills across all grade levels,” said Cecilia Calvo-Lewis, vice-president of tutorial services at Edukasyon.ph, an online learning platform, in an e-mail. “For reading, the learning gaps are more prominent in emerging readers. Most 5th and 6th graders we meet – maybe close to 90% – are not proficient in reading.”

This improficiency also extends to Tagalog, she added.

About 1,000 K-12 students from Luzon and Visayas have enrolled in EDGE, a live tutoring service launched this May by Edukasyon.ph, which offers English, Math, and Tagalog subjects.

EDGE also partnered this July with Children International, a non-profit child sponsorship organization, to deliver tutorial and remedial lessons in reading and math to more than 150 public school students. The program includes grade-level assessment; personalized digital learning instruction; and a mobile phone plan to ensure continued learning.

“This is how the private sector can have more active involvement in responding to the learning crisis in the country. We hope more are encouraged to do the same,” said Grace M. David, Edukasyon.ph chief executive officer, in a Sept. 30 statement.

BusinessWorld previously reported that the Philippines’ learning poverty is among the highest in the region, with nine of 10 Filipinos unable to read and understand short age-appropriate texts by the age of 10, according to the World Bank.

The Department of Education (DepEd) on Sept. 14 asked Congress for an additional P100 billion to “solve all the problems of basic education” in the country.

EDGE is offering a 15% discount on its remote tutorial services this October with the code OCTOBER2022. — Patricia B. Mirasol