About 3,000 youths in the Ilocos Region are targeted to benefit from the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) “Tara, Basa!” (Let’s Read) tutoring program this year.

DSWD 1 (Ilocos Region) Director Marie Angela Gopalan, in an interview on Monday, said the program aims to address foundational literacy gaps of young children while providing cash-for-work opportunities to students who work as tutors and youth development workers, who will receive daily minimum wage for two- to three-hour tutorials and parenting sessions for 20 days.

“The tutor-to-learner ratio of 1:5 for tutoring sessions enhanced learners’ literacy skills, and a youth development worker-to-parent ratio of 1:10 for Nanay-Tatay sessions focused on supporting parents’ involvement in their children’s literacy and parenting skills,” she said in Filipino.

She said the program, in cooperation with the Department of Education (DepEd), also aims to help poor but deserving college students meet their educational needs.

“This is a cash-for-work mode of assistance, so it is not a scholarship. They work for this. And its mode is like tutoring. So, what they do is for tutoring, and we tie up because in the DepEd, we saw that there is a need to help children who also have learning needs,” Gopalan said, adding that Grades 1 and 2 children who have poor reading comprehension are the target of the tutoring.

“But the program does not only target the children they are helping. The parents of these children can also provide coaching. So, it’s the child and the parents who get the assistance, who get support from the tutors, so that we can ensure that the child’s learning is continuous even after the program.”

Under the program, parents or guardians are given PHP235 per day for their attendance at the 20-day Nanay-Tatay sessions. (PNA)