TARA BASA! The Department of Social Welfare and Development Field Office-10 holds capacity-building for 207 students from Mindanao State University at the Marawi City campus on April 1-3, 2024. Students are being trained as tutors for the implementation of the Tara, Basa! Tutoring Program to help improve the reading proficiency of elementary students who are struggling to read or are non-readers. (DSWD photo)
MANILA – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has kicked off its capability-building activities for 449 tutors and youth development workers (YDWs) in Cebu and Lanao del Sur for Tara, Basa! Tutoring Program.
In Mandaue City in Cebu, DSWD Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao on Thursday said a new batch of 242 tutors and YDWs, including tutors from the Cebu Normal University have joined the training that started last Monday.
The DSWD’s Social Technology Bureau (STB) and Field Office-7, in cooperation with the Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED) and the Department of Education (DepEd) led the training in Cebu.
In Mindanao, 207 students from Mindanao State University (MSU) joined the training from April 1 to 3 in Marawi City to prepare them for their teaching roles in June.
The students-tutors will teach grade schoolers experiencing difficulty in reading or are non-readers in madrasas and torils, and learners in formal education, in Marawi City and Taraka, Lanao del Sur.
During the opening session, DSWD Field Office-10 Assistant Regional Director for Administration Salmah Basher emphasized the significant role that the college students will play in fostering positive change and promoting peace advocacy within the region.
“You will be contributing not only to the educational learning and improvement of the children but also in making them future change agents and peace advocates,” Basher said in her message to the students.
Tara, Basa! Tutoring Program is the DSWD's reformatted educational assistance that creates a learning ecosystem, wherein college students will be capacitated and deployed as tutors and YDWs to help improve the reading proficiency of elementary students who are struggling to read or are non-readers.
The tutors and YDWs, in return, will receive regionally-accepted minimum wage to support their educational needs.
Dumlao said the program will help capacitate college students (tutors and YDWs) to gain skills that they can use in the future.
“Through Tara, Basa! program, we are confident that college students will be more equipped and inspired to participate in nation-building because the program empowers the youth and provides an avenue for them to be compassionate and develop a sense of responsibility,” she said.
Among the topics discussed in the training were the objectives and goals of Tara, Basa! Tutoring Program, proper execution of the tutorial sessions using the enhanced guidebook for tutors, and the administration of Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) and Quick English Reading Assessment (QERA).
The DepEd uses the CRLA to identify a child's reading profile and monitor their performance and progress, while the QERA is used to measure the English reading abilities of the children, Dumlao added.
On March 8, DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian led the scaled-up implementation of Tara Basa in Cebu City.
This April, the tutoring program will also be launched in Quezon Province, Western Samar and General Santos City. (PNA)
