Los Baños, Laguna
Every child deserves to read at their grade level
More than half of the country’s Grade 1 to 3 learners cannot. RCOF is the answer Los Baños is building: public-school classrooms fitted out so a national reading intervention can actually be taught in them — and measured well enough to say whether it worked.
In coordination with DepEd Los Baños
The reading crisis, in the government’s own numbers
The Second Congressional Commission on Education describes a country losing ground. These are not projections. They are counts.
| 24.8M | Functionally illiterate Filipinos in 2024 — nearly double the 14.5 million recorded in 1993. |
EDCOM2 |
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| 52.26% | Of Grades 1 to 3 learners are not reading at grade level. That is close to 2.9 million children. |
Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment, via EDCOM2 |
| 30% | Of required English textbooks have been procured. Mathematics stands at 40%, Science at 20%. |
DepEd data as of August 2023, via EDCOM2 |
EDCOM2 traces the shortfall to three things: gaps in foundational skills, high drop-out rates, and the state of learning resources. Its recommendation is specific about where to intervene — early childhood and primary education, with outcomes improved by Grade 3, because that is the foundation everything after it is built on.
Local governments play a pivotal role in supporting struggling readers.
A Filipino idea, worked on since 1917
RCOF did not arrive with a procurement. It is the current point on a line running through more than a century of Filipino educators arguing the same thing: that the right learning material, in a child’s own hands, changes what that child becomes.
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Pepe and Pilar
1917Hon. Camilo Osias — the first Filipino Superintendent of Schools — introduces the Philippine Reader series: the first learning materials written in English but grounded in Filipino culture and daily life. They shaped a generation fluent in English and rooted in its own identity.
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One device, every textbook
2008Prof. Louie Divinagracia, now Chancellor of University of the East Manila, and a group of education experts and advocates conceive a simple idea: a tablet holding every textbook a student needs.
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“Swing that bat”
2010Former Senator Richard J. Gordon proposes giving every public-school student in the Philippines an e-reader carrying an entire curriculum, funded by a small tax on text messages.
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The eRizal Tablet
2011Hon. Neil Andrew N. Nocon, then Provincial Board Member of Laguna, brings the eRizal Tablet to the Provincial Government. It launches with UP Los Baños, Vibal Publishing and DepEd on the 150th birth anniversary of Dr. José P. Rizal — a digital learning device made in Laguna, named for Laguna’s own hero.
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A thousand tablets
2013eRapps reaches Google Play as a free download carrying the history of Laguna. A thousand units go out to public schools across 18 towns and cities of the province, to positive reviews from the schools that received them.
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RizTab‑25
2025Los Baños re-launches the Rizal Tablet, updated and improved, as one part of a whole classroom — and this time carrying DepEd’s own ARAL Program materials.
A classroom, not just a device
The 2011 tablets worked, and the student beneficiaries at Pedro Guevarra Memorial High School said so. What RCOF adds is everything around the device: classrooms with connectivity that holds, interactive television units, and teachers equipped to run remedial sessions rather than left to improvise them.
The elements of the classroom pay homage to the members of Dr. Rizal’s own family who played key roles in his education — because the programme is as much about who a learner becomes as about what they can decode.
Remedial sessions
The classrooms are used for remedial work with the learners performing furthest behind their classmates — the children the ARAL Program exists for.
The whole student population
Once the approach has proven itself, the same tech-assisted learning ecosystem is adopted for the general student population.
What is loaded on RizTab‑25
The Rizal Tablet 2.0 arrives with its content already on it, so a lesson never waits for a download. Two kinds of material sit side by side.
The academic recovery materials
DepEd’s grade-specific ARAL Program modules — the prescribed national intervention for reading, mathematics and science. This deployment carries the reading strand: ARAL Reading Basic and ARAL Reading Plus.
The materials that make a citizen
Artificial intelligence and cyber safety. GMRC and Filipino values. The history of the Philippine flag, and Dr. Rizal’s journey towards his martyrdom. Reading is the skill; this is what the skill is for.
RCOF is not a technology programme. Technology is the instrument; the subject is literacy, and the teacher stays at the centre of the room.
How ARAL and RCOF fit together
They are not the same thing, and the difference is the whole point.
ARAL is the programme
Republic Act 12028 — the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program Act — establishes a free national intervention for learners from Kindergarten to Grade 10, including the Alternative Learning System, who are struggling in reading, mathematics and science. It is national, and it is law.
RCOF is how it gets delivered
The classroom, the tablet the modules are loaded onto, the teacher running the session, and the record each session leaves behind. ARAL says what should be taught. RCOF is Los Baños’ answer to how — and whether that how works.
The app behind this domain is that delivery. Learners work through the reading modules chapter by chapter, writing on the pages as they would on paper.
How a session runs
The workbook, as the child meets it on paper
The same pages, written on directly with a pen. Their name and section are filled into the header for them.
The lesson does not depend on the wifi
A class can start, run and be saved with the network down. Work syncs on its own once the tablet is back online.
What each learner has done, and what needs marking
Progress per chapter, submitted work to mark, and the literacy assessments the programme is measured on.
Nothing reads the passage aloud
No text-to-speech, deliberately. ARAL exists to teach struggling readers to decode text themselves; a voice reading the page would do the very thing being measured.
The climb up Makiling
On the tablet, each subject’s chapters are a trail up Mount Makiling, the mountain the learners can see from their own schoolyard. A child always knows where they are, and what comes next.
A chapter opens when the one before it is handed in
Tap a locked stop and the trail says which chapter to finish first. Coming back from handing one in, the learner’s marker walks up to the next stop.
A medal for every trail finished
Hand in every Filipino chapter of a module, or every English one, and the flag on the summit turns gold. The medal stays on the module, and the teacher sees it on the learner’s page.
Nobody has to guess what to press
The first time a learner or a teacher meets a screen, a short walkthrough lights up what to press, one thing at a time. The ? in the corner brings it back.
Each child climbs their own mountain
No leaderboard and no comparison with classmates. ARAL exists for the children a class has already left behind; a ranking would only tell them where they sit.
How improvement is measured
Three stages, in order. Each learner is compared against their own starting point, never against their classmates.
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Before
A literacy baseline — oral reading fluency, accuracy, comprehension and symbol–word association, alongside writing, digital literacy and motivation. Recorded with the learner’s profile: age, household circumstances, whether there is internet or a device at home, and last year’s performance.
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During
Attendance, modules completed, time actually spent on the tablet, scores on finished chapters, class participation, and any technical problems that got in the way of a session.
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After
The same measures taken again, so the change for each learner can be read directly — and so the programme can say where it worked, where it did not, and what to refine before the next phase.
Three schools, one grade level
The programme is piloted in three DepEd-supervised public schools in Los Baños, with incoming Grade 4 learners.
Maahas Elementary School
Mayondon Elementary School
Los Baños Central Elementary School
KAALAMAN
The local government of Los Baños heeds DepEd’s call for intervention under Mayor Neil Andrew N. Nocon’s KAALAMAN advocacy.
Supported by
- Department of Education
- University of the Philippines
- Provincial Government of Laguna
- National Historical Commission of the Philippines
- Philippine Red Cross 143
- University of the East
- Impact Solutions Institute of the Philippines
What this is all for
Did learners who underwent the ARAL Program intervention, in the context of the Rizal Classroom of the Future, significantly improve their reading skills?
- Whether the Rizal Classroom of the Future setting is an effective way to deliver ARAL.
- Which factors actually contributed to improvement in learners’ reading and writing.
- Which parts need refining before the next phase of implementation.
Ang RCOF, sa madaling salita
Programang teknolohiya ba ang RCOF?
Hindi. Ang RCOF ay pangunahing programang pang-edukasyon at pagpapahusay ng literasiya. Ang teknolohiya ay instrumento lamang upang suportahan ang pagkatuto at mapadali ang pag-access sa mga materyales. Ang layunin ay mapaunlad ang kakayahan sa pagbasa, pag-unawa, komunikasyon at pag-iisip.
Paano tinutugunan ang pangamba sa sobrang screen time?
Ginagamit lamang ang teknolohiya kapag may malinaw na benepisyo sa pagkatuto. Nananatiling sentro ng edukasyon ang mga guro, aklat at talakayan. Katuwang lamang ang teknolohiya — hindi kapalit ng personal na pagtuturo at pakikipag-ugnayan.
Bakit ipinangalan kay Dr. José Rizal?
Dahil siya ang simbolo ng kahalagahan ng edukasyon, patuloy na pagkatuto, kritikal na pag-iisip at pagmamahal sa bayan — at siya ay anak ng Laguna. Layunin ng RCOF na humubog ng mga mag-aaral na may parehong pagpapahalaga.
Paano sinusuportahan ng RCOF ang mga guro?
Sa pamamagitan ng pagsasanay, kagamitang panturo at digital tools. Kinikilala ng RCOF na ang mga guro ang pinakamahalagang katuwang sa edukasyon, kaya ang layunin ay palakasin ang kanilang kakayahan — hindi sila palitan.
Sino ang makikinabang?
Ang mga mag-aaral sa basic education, lalo na ang mga nangangailangan ng karagdagang suporta sa pagbasa. Sa piloto, ang mga papasok na Grade 4 ng DepEd Los Baños. Makikinabang din ang mga guro, paaralan, magulang at komunidad.
Paano makikibahagi ang mga nais tumulong?
Sa pamamagitan ng pondo, teknolohiya, kagamitang pang-edukasyon, pagsasanay para sa mga guro, at pananaliksik. Maaaring makipag-ugnayan sa mga email address sa ibaba.
Future-Ready Learning Begins Today.