Manila: The Department of Education (DepEd) announced its plan to significantly expand the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program to benefit 6.7 million learners in public schools across the Philippines. This expansion follows the signing of the 2026 General Appropriations Act by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., which allocates PHP8.93 billion to the initiative.

According to Philippines News Agency, DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara highlighted that this is the first time the ARAL program will be fully funded. Angara emphasized the unprecedented financial commitment to the program, which aims to help students catch up in reading and math, areas where they have fallen behind.

The DepEd plans to enlist 440,000 tutors, comprising both DepEd and non-DepEd personnel, for the School Year 2026 to 2027. This initiative is designed to bolster learning recovery efforts for struggling students and alleviate the workload and classroom pressures on public school teachers. Additionally, the ARAL fund will support tutor training to align with literacy standards and the procurement of enhanced learning materials.

Part of the program's enhancement includes improving the learner tracking mechanism through the Learner Information System, as part of DepEd's robust monitoring and evaluation framework. The agency stated that these efforts signify a shift from temporary recovery measures to established remediation efforts targeting learning gaps in reading and mathematics within basic education.

As of the latest report, the DepEd noted that 3.42 million learners from Grades 3 to 6 and 1.72 million learners from Grades 7 to 10 have progressed towards their grade-level proficiency, based on the Middle of School Year (MoSY) assessments. Notably, reading readiness improved by an average of five points among struggling learners in Grades 3 to 6, while those in Grades 7 to 10 recorded improvements of six to nine points.

In 2025, the ARAL program reached approximately 3 million learners across the nation.