‘Interventions’ needed to prevent alarming ALS dropout rate: Gatchalian

SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian yesterday said he is seeking “interventions” that will prevent Alternative Learning System (ALS) enrollees from dropping out.

He has observed a steady decline in ALS completion rates, which indicates increasing levels of learner dropouts. He said that only 65 percent or 454,550 out of the 698,356 learners completed the program in the school year 2016 -2017.

Gatchalian, who chairs the Committee on Basic Education, said the numbers dropped further to 49 percent completion or 328,195 out of the 668,947 learners enrolled in school year 2021-2022.

He said that according to a study by the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the lack of financial support (38 percent) and work (29 percent) are the top reasons why learners do not complete the ALS program.

“We need to strengthen guidance and counseling for ALS learners to help and encourage them to stay in the program. We also need to provide career progression for ALS learners so they can know where they will go, what type of skills we can impart, and what type of jobs they can go to after taking ALS,” said Gatchalian, the principal author and sponsor of RA 11510 or the ALS Act.

He said that implementing the Accreditation and Equivalency (A&E) Assessment is equally important to measure learners’ performance. A&E Assessment seeks to measure and certify the competencies of ALS program completers.

He said that while the average completion rate from SY 2016-2017 to SY 2018-2019 was 63 percent, only 33 percent, on average, of those who completed the programs passed the A&E Assessment.

Based on estimates from his office and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)-Labor Force Survey 2018 and 2021, up to 27.3 million Filipinos aged 15 and above who did not complete basic education were enrolled in ALS for SY 2022-2023.

There were 640,448 ALS learners enrolled that same school year, which is the equivalent of a 2 percent participation rate.