Rising to the Challenge: Improving Basic Education in the Philippines

Access to quality education in a child’s early years has critical, lasting impacts on the rest of their life, and better educated learners go on to establish the foundation for a robust, inclusive, and participatory society and economy.  

ABC+: Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines (2019–2026) contributes to the agenda of the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) to improve literacy and numeracy skills among young learners. It operates in partnership with central and regional education officials, the private sector, and local organizations to ensure that evidence-based solutions for improved early literacy and numeracy instruction can be adopted and sustained by the Philippine education system.  

The project also focuses on fostering a more equitable, inclusive, and nurturing climate for learning in the early grades through application of social and emotional learning (SEL) and gender equity and social inclusion (GESI) principles.

To date, ABC+ has:

• Trained more than 193,000 educators 37,000+ schools.  
• Developed or adapted more than 2,000 titles in English and in 12 local languages, including Filipino.
• Printed more than 33.2 million early grade reading materials and distributed them to more than 6.9 million students.
• Produced more than 65 television- or radio-based instruction materials to connect with remote learners in hard-to-reach geographies.  
• Adapted its training methodologies, leveraging virtual platforms, to train over 156,000 teachers, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

In 2012, as part of wider education reforms, the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) launched its Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) policy, which supports the development of students’ foundational literacy skills in 19 mother tongues and the transition of literacy acquired in a child’s first language to Filipino and English by the end of grade 3.  

MTB-MLE builds on the knowledge, skills and vocabulary children already know in their mother tongue, an approach grounded in scientific evidence of how children learn to read. However, its implementation is challenging in a linguistically diverse country like the Philippines, which has more than 170 languages. ABC+ is designed to assist DepEd in addressing this challenge. 

To effectively implement a multilingual-based early literacy policy, there must be an adequate supply of early reading materials available in children’s first languages. Guaranteeing the availability and use of early reading materials is challenging given the linguistic diversity of the Philippines.  
 
In support of this need, the project developed the ABC+ Classroom Reading Package, which includes wordless picture books, decodable readers, and leveled readers in English, Filipino, and mother tongue languages, as well as listening stories and big books in English and Filipino.  In collaboration with Regional and Schools Divisions Offices this package has been delivered to schools in three regions (V and VI) and in parts of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. 
 
Additionally, with partner SIL LEAD, ABC+ researched and documented all the languages and their dialects in Regions V and VI—which are among the most linguistically complex regions in the Philippines—and mapped their geographical distribution as well as the status of their written form. This effort improved the quality of data available to DepEd and enabled ABC+ to accurately provide reading resources that match the languages that children speak in each school.  These and other initiatives support education sector leaders in ABC+ target regions to make data-driven decisions for improving the implementation of MTB-MLE. Together with DepEd, ABC+ led the development of the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment, or CRLA, a multi-modal reading test for early grade learners. This tool quickly classifies learners based on their reading ability in Mother Tongue, English, and Filipino. The CRLA, developed in 22 Mother Tongue languages, is now used nationwide by K to 3 teachers, so far reaching 5 million learners in 38, 445 schools.  

In complement to the offerings of the Department of Education, ABC+ provides a suite of professional development programs for in-service teachers. These programs equip educators to enhance reading proficiency and foster a reading culture, while integrating SEL and GESI principles that support inclusive education. ABC+ teacher training introduces concrete and applicable instructional strategies for bridging language and literacy skills from mother tongue to Filipino and English, and for effectively using supplemental reading materials to enhance instruction and support remediation. These trainings have been reviewed and certified by DepEd’s National Educators Academy of the Philippines.

The project also collaborates with local partners to develop materials such as digitized microlearning sessions and literacy teaching strategy videos to reach more teachers and support DepEd’s National Reading Program (NRP). The results of the CRLA showed that there is still a significant number of non-readers in Grades 1-3. In response, ABC+ in collaboration with DepEd, to make available a series of video-based beginning reading lessons that can be used by teachers in class and can also be used by teachers to improve their skills in teaching beginning reading.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, training programs were adapted to be offered online. With the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, the virtual training that was implemented for teachers, instructional supervisors, and content developers for supplemental reading materials is being delivered in hybrid formats, combining online and in-person workshops that enhance teacher engagement and peer-to-peer learning.

Read more about how the project adapted training during COVID-19.

To monitor the quality of online training, ABC+ developed a Teacher Training Dashboard to track participant attendance, learning, and course completion. With support from ABC+ partner Florida State University, the project worked with Bicol University and Western Visayas State University to design and implement modules for university courses on early literacy development and on teaching early grade reading to strengthen the pre-service preparation of future teachers.  

In addition, ABC+ continues to support DepEd’s efforts to strengthen the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP), the agency assigned to lead and standardize professional development for teachers and school heads across the country. NEAP has accredited ABC+ as one of its learning service providers for professional development programs. 

ABC+ also piloted, evaluated, and adapted for wider application innovations in math instruction to improve numeracy skills among young learners. Following the pilot, ABC+ worked with the National Institute for Science and Math Education Development of the Philippines to provide guidelines for learning action cell (school-based professional development) activities among teachers in Regions V and VI focused on improved math instruction. This included, for example, how to incorporate hands-on learning of basic math and how to relate math concepts to learners’ everyday lives.  

ABC+ also developed the Rapid Math Assessment (RMA) in 19 languages. The tool helps teachers gather data and understand their Grades 1-3 learners’ current numeracy and mathematical needs, hence providing appropriate intervention.  

ABC+ is currently supporting DepEd in achieving its goal of intensifying stakeholder engagement efforts with the aim of mobilizing local governments, the private sector, and communities to advocate for and participate in sustaining positive impacts related to learning outcomes, teacher professional development, and access to teaching and learning materials. For example, the project engaged EON Group to help build a coalition of private sector stakeholders to support DepEd initiatives and programs, especially at the local level, as advocates, influencers, sources of advice and expertise, and philanthropists.  

The project is focused on building DepEd’s capacity to engage partners and stakeholders more systematically and strategically. The introduction of the Education Sector Mechanism (ESM) brings together local government, DepEd’s schools divisions offices, and private and other non-governmental stakeholders to jointly identify priority needs and to plan for and implement targeted interventions to address those needs. For instance, in Tabaco City, local private sector partners committed to working with the local government and DepEd to provide books and school supplies when classes returned to face-to-face learning after the pandemic. In Antique province, nutrition and improved water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities in schools were identified as priority needs and plans for addressing concerns were developed.  

In the 2022–2023 school year, ABC+ mobilized to support DepEd with its learning recovery efforts as children transitioned back to in-school learning after two years of remote learning with limited direct instructional support from teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Support for learning recovery included developing formative assessment tools to quickly identify learners’ reading and math proficiency levels, which helped teachers align instructional strategies to student's levels of literacy skill acquisition.  

The project further intervened to support local education authorities during other emergencies such as a volcanic eruption, five typhoons, and monsoon flooding.

In recognition of the project’s success in strengthening early education—even in the face of health and natural disaster challenges— in early 2024, USAID extended ABC+ for two years, until 2026. The extension allows RTI and its partners to expand into additional Schools Divisions in select regions and reach another one million individuals.  

ABC+ will continue to support DepEd’s adoption and national implementation of successful teacher professional development, language mapping, distribution of materials, and using the rapid assessments that the project has introduced. The literacy and math assessments developed by ABC+ are now being used nationally with over 5 million learners at the start of the school year. This enables teachers to target interventions to ensure all learners make progress in building the important foundational literacy and math skills that will enable them to succeed throughout their education and in life.  

In addition, during the extension, ABC+ will focus on supporting its partner schools in harnessing all the relevant inputs from the project: instructional strategies from teacher trainings, developmentally appropriate reading materials, and assessment tools to improve their teaching practices.  

The project will also provide technical assistance to school heads and supervisors in strengthening systems support, including instructional supervision, resource allocation, and technical guidance so that teachers and schools are effectively supported in their teaching and the schools are conducive for learning.  

Learn more about our work in international education and in the Philippines.