P16.03 billion for ARAL sought to sustain PISA gains

Students attend their classes after their holiday break at Araullo High School in Manila on Jan. 4, 2024.

The STAR / Ernie Penaredondo

MANILA, Philippines — Education Secretary Sonny Angara on Tuesday urged Congress to approve a P16.03-billion supplemental budget for 2027 to sustain the gains made by Filipino students in the 2025 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) through the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program.

Angara said Filipino students’ scores in reading, mathematics and science improved significantly in PISA 2025 amid the implementation of ARAL.

“These latest PISA gains are an encouraging checkpoint, not the finish line. They prove that system-wide progress is possible, but they also highlight why sustained funding and structured interventions like ARAL remain non-negotiable,” Angara said.

The proposed additional P16.03 billion for next year would cover remediation consultations, learning resources, training of DepEd tutors, the ARAL Summer Program, compensation for external tutors and teaching overload honoraria.

“To sustain this momentum, the Department of Education (DepEd) is appealing to lawmakers to restore funding for the ARAL Program under its Fiscal Year 2027 budget after the initiative received zero allocation in the National Expenditure Program,” DepEd said.

During school year 2025-2026, ARAL formed part of DepEd’s intensified learning recovery efforts by providing targeted support to struggling learners.

The program helped reduce the number of struggling readers nationwide from 6.7 million to 2.2 million while increasing grade-level reading readiness from 3.3 million to 5.8 million learners.

The Philippines recorded a mean score of 373 in science, 371 in mathematics and 367 in reading in PISA 2025, up by 17, 16 and 20 points, respectively, from the country’s 2022 results.