The Department of Education (DepEd) and De La Salle University (DLSU) will launch the Philippine Dictionary Project (PDP) at DLSU, Taft Avenue in Manila this Friday.

The partnership aims to give public elementary school students access to age-appropriate, illustrated English dictionaries.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro along with literacy advocate and PDP founder Nina Patawaran and DLSU Chancellor Emeritus Dr. Carmelita Quebengco will spearhead the launch. DLSU will be PDP’s local partner center of excellence for Metro Manila and will house donated dictionaries at the DLSU Philippines Dictionary Project Collection which will be located at DLSU Main Library.

During the launch, each DepEd partner will receive 50 sets of brand new children’s dictionaries. The PDP is a grassroots movement which endeavors to help Filipino public school students improve their academic performance by distributing high quality children’s dictionaries to public elementary schools across the Philippines.

PDP uses the Scholastic First Dictionaries (ISBN 0439798345). Dictionaries are fully illustrated but have a few words in it and it also does not use the conventional phonetics found in most dictionaries. (Ina Hernando-Malipot)