When aral program gets zero

By Herman M. Lagon

Imagine a child who can read every word on the page but cannot quite tell you what the paragraph means. The bell has rung, classmates are packing their bags, and the teacher knows this learner needs more time. Not another speech about education. Not another slogan about literacy. Time. Guidance. Practice. Someone who can sit beside the child and patiently ask, “Ano ang ibig sabihin ng binasa mo?” That, in its simplest form, is what learning recovery is supposed to provide.

We already built a government program around that need. The Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning, or ARAL, Program was established under Republic Act No. 12028 to provide interventions for public-school learners struggling in reading, mathematics, and science. In 2026, it received roughly ₱9 billion. Then came the proposed 2027 National Expenditure Program: zero. Education Secretary Sonny Angara confirmed the zero allotment during the House budget hearing on September 7.

There is something strange about that sequence. We identify a learning crisis, pass a law to address it, launch a national intervention, report encouraging results, and then begin the next budget cycle with nothing specifically allocated to continue it. This is not yet the final national budget, thankfully. Congress can restore funding, and DepEd is asking for ₱15.98 billion for ARAL. The requested amount would cover, among others, tutor training, compensation for external tutors, honoraria for teaching overload, learning resources, summer interventions, and program management.

The numbers make the zero harder to understand. According to Angara, about 6.7 million learners entered ARAL, and by the end of the school year there were 4.5 million fewer struggling readers; around 2.5 million had moved up to grade-level reading. Teachers and principals he encountered also reported positive experiences with the program. Those are substantial claims, although they deserve continued independent evaluation rather than unquestioning celebration. Still, if government believes the program helped produce those gains, zero is an odd starting figure for sustaining them.

To be fair, ARAL is not beyond criticism. EDCOM 2 has pointed out that the program has not yet fully closed the skills gap. Problems have included learner attendance and the absence of adequate policy arrangements for hiring external tutors. Its implementation has also concentrated heavily on reading even though the law covers mathematics and science. These weaknesses matter. A program should not receive billions merely because its acronym sounds hopeful. If Congress restores the money, it should also ask who actually attended, which interventions worked, which learners improved, what the gains cost, and where implementation failed.

But there is an equally important danger in starving an imperfect program instead of improving it. In schools, a zero does not remain neatly inside a spreadsheet. A child who still cannot comprehend a passage continues to struggle in Araling Panlipunan, science, mathematics, and eventually almost everything that requires reading. A teacher still has to find time for remediation. A parent who may already be worried about pamasahe, baon, and the electric bill may have few options for private tutoring. Learning gaps have a habit of following children home.

This is why ARAL should not become our convenient answer to every educational problem, either. Literacy problems cannot all be deposited at ARAL’s doorstep. Neither can inclusion, mental health, absenteeism, malnutrition, weak instruction, family poverty, or every other difficulty a child carries into school. A tutorial program cannot replace good classroom teaching, enough teachers, nutritious meals, counselors, supportive families, accessible learning materials, and functioning schools. Sometimes government programs acquire so many expectations that their acronyms begin doing more work than their budgets.

That point matters especially now because ARAL is not the only critical DepEd concern looking for additional money. The department is seeking ₱145.19 billion more for programs that are unfunded or insufficiently funded in the proposed NEP. Its supplemental requests include personnel, school safety, learner support, health and mental-health services, guidance programs, classroom needs, and expanded assistance for learners with special needs and those in geographically isolated communities. A national budget necessarily involves choices. Congress cannot simply answer every request with a check.

But choices reveal priorities. That is why zero deserves an explanation. If ARAL is ineffective, government should tell the public so and redesign it. If parts of it work and others do not, fund what works and repair what does not. If the reported reading gains withstand proper evaluation, then sustain and improve the intervention. What makes little policy sense is to praise a program’s gains, describe learning recovery as urgent, and leave its next appropriation dependent on Congress putting the money back.

Perhaps this is also a useful lesson in how we talk about education reform. Filipinos have heard many solutions arrive with impressive names, launch ceremonies, memoranda, hashtags, and PowerPoint slides. The real test comes later, usually somewhere less photogenic: a child trying to understand a paragraph, a tutor staying after class, a teacher looking at assessment results and realizing that several learners still need help. Good policy should eventually reach that encounter. Otherwise, reform remains something adults announce while children wait.

Congress now has an opportunity to do more than simply restore a number. It can ask whether ARAL delivered what taxpayers paid for in 2026, correct its weaknesses, require clearer measures of progress, and fund the parts that demonstrably help learners. Accountability and support are not enemies. In fact, serious public investment requires both. A program meant for struggling children deserves neither a blank check nor an empty wallet.

Tomorrow, somewhere in a public school, another child will reach the end of a paragraph and still not understand what it says. The teacher will sit beside that learner if time allows. Someone will have to provide the extra lesson, the material, the tutor, or simply another patient hour. We already gave that effort a name and made it a law.

If we still believe in recovery, zero is a difficult way to show it.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.