Revival of DepEd’s library project urged

The revival of the Department of Education’s “Library Hub Project” has been proposed to raise the literacy level among pupils in the primary grade.

Councilor Edgardo Labella filed at the City Council a resolution urging DepEd to revive this project by putting up libraries in public schools in partnership with government agencies and the private sector.

Labella said that public schools should make books accessible to schoolchildren because literary plays a primary role in building an intelligent population.

The councilor expressed concern over reports said that one out of 10 Filipinos could neither read nor write.

The Philippine Informal Reading Inventory Report, covering school year 2003 and 2004, indicated that assessed frustrated readers (slow readers or non-readers) reached 64.1 percent at the Grade I level and 49.98 percent at the Grade 2 level.

“It cannot be denied that literacy is a continuing process of learning that enables an individual to achieve his/her goals as well as fully participate in the wider society,” Labella said in his proposed resolution.

Labella argued that one of the building blocks of literacy is reading, even under the Internet era, and that a library full of books is still the best starting point especially for primary pupils in public schools to learn reading.

He also cited a National Statistics Office report, based on the result of the Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey in 2003, showing the country’s basic literacy rate at 86.6 percent or about 51 million of people aged 10 to 64.

While the survey showed the highest functional literacy rate of 84 percent or 49 million of the sample population with the age group 20 to 24, the literacy rate however among those in the 10-to-14 age group posted the lowest, Labella said. — Wenna A. Berondo/RAE