A congressional education commission has sounded the alarm over funding and hiring delays in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) flagship remedial program, warning that setbacks are crippling an initiative meant to reverse declining student proficiency.

The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) said recent inspection visits to public schools in Manila’s impoverished Baseco district revealed low student attendance and a severe shortage of tutors.

Instead of the robust network of paid educators envisioned by the law, most tutoring sessions are being carried out by unpaid volunteer teachers.

“The lack of timely release of funds and clear guidance on engaging external tutors has left schools scrambling,” Representative Roman Romulo, co-chairperson of EDCOM 2, said Wednesday. “Even meal and transport allowances are uncertain, despite billions appropriated for this program.”

The Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program, or ARAL, was institutionalized under Republic Act 12028 to address massive learning losses in foundational reading and math.

Under department guidelines, the program was scheduled to run from 6 May to 2 June, mandating a strict 1-to-10 tutor-to-learner ratio.

However, EDCOM 2 investigators found that at one Baseco elementary school, only 2.7 percent of the first-grade students identified for remedial lessons actually attended. The school had no volunteer tutors available for third-grade students.

At another school, just two volunteer teachers were left to manage 130 struggling students.

National data show slight reading gains in early grade assessments this year, but a significant share of Filipino learners remain below proficiency benchmarks, particularly in higher grade levels.

The DepEd previously announced that it had allocated billions of pesos in the 2026 national budget for the ARAL program. The agency’s plan detailed hiring hundreds of thousands of outside tutors nationwide, including recent education graduates and para-teachers, to ease the burden on public school staff.

Teachers’ groups said they warned the government that the rollout was rushed. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) flagged unclear funding mechanics and an increased workload for teachers when the program began earlier this month.

“ARAL is meant to close learning gaps,” ACT chairperson Ruby Bernardo said in a previous statement. “But without sufficient funding and serious support, it risks becoming another underpowered intervention that barely scratches the surface.”