MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Education (DepEd) is partnering with a private group to facilitate readiness of five-year-old children for Grade 1 and to ensure their success in formal schooling.

In DepEd Memo No. 488, Education Secretary Armin Luistro urged public school officials to participate in “Silid Pangarap,” a school libraries cum preschool classroom project of DepEd in partnership with the Aklat, Gabay, Aruga tungo sa Pag-angat at Pag-asa (AGAPP) foundation.

According to Luistro, the huge resources needed to achieve DepEd’s goal can be attained with help of the private sector and the civil society.

“We need to collaborate on various projects that will continue the goal of reaching all five-year old children and to provide them with the much needed learning environment and experiences,” he said.

The AGAPP foundation, said Luistro, has taken the lead to respond to DepEd’s call by designing a project that actively promoted the mobilization of the private sector resources and talents.

“This is also in support of our existing programs such as the Kindergarten Program and Every Child-A-Reader program,” he said.

This partnership has been formalized through a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between the AGAPP Foundation and the DepEd through the Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE).

In August 2010, the DepEd and AGAPP Foundation launched the “School Libraries cum Preschool Classroom” with the construction of one-storey building furnished as school library which will be utilized as kindergarten classroom with accompanying age appropriate instructional materials.

“We also facilitated teacher training and school staff development with focus on early childhood care and development and family literacy,” Luistro said.

Partnership building and networking involving volunteers and non-government organizations (NGOs) at the local level closer to the schools were also conducted.

In support of this partnership, Luistro urged all divisions to submit the list of schools with preschool classes. They should also submit the total enrolment for each preschool class disaggregated by gender and age; name of teacher, appointment status, and number of preschool class handled and other assignments; type of classroom occupied by each preschool (e.g. new classroom, temporary classroom, store room etc.); existing instructional materials used by the preschool teacher and the FORM 3 or Principals Report Attendance of the school for the last three months; school site development plan; and photos of school facilities.

The potential recipient schools will be asked to accomplish and submit as soon as possible the enclosed AGAPP-BEE forms 1 and 2 i.e. School Profile and AGAPP-BEE and Questionnaire for Partner Schools respectively, as basis for inspection and final selection.