The Department of Social Welfare and Development – National Capital Region (DSWD-NCR) recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Department of Education (DepED) for the implementation of the Kariton Klasrum.

The ceremony took place at the Bulwagan ng Karunungan, DepED Complex, Meralco Ave., Pasig City to launch the DepEd’s alternative mode of learning, which adopted the Kariton Klasrum of the Dynamic Teen Company.

Driven by the DepED’s mandate to provide equitable access and quality education to all types of learners including the street children, the Kariton Klasrum seeks to broaden access to basic education among street children and out-of-school children and youth, through the use of outdoor learning scheme. It also aims to encourage street children and out of school children to love learning.

According to DepED Secretary Armin Luistro, “The project aims to have the beneficiary-children achieve a 100 percent passing rate for them to be re-integrated into mainstream or regular schools.” This will enable children that do not have access to formal education to have basic education.

Basically, the design of the Kariton Klasrum is a push cart with drawers and back pockets for storage of instructional and learning materials. It has also a multi-purpose table top and a foldable flip top blackboard which can be used for various learning activities. Instructional materials such as books, test booklets, charts, number puzzles, flash cards and writing materials are for the teacher volunteers while notebooks, pencils, ballpens, crayons and other school supplies are the materials needed by the learners.

According to Undersecretary Mario Deriquito, the Kariton Klasrums will also contain “…hygiene kits, first aid kits, and other teaching implements such as storybooks— among others. The package may also include snacks and feeding options for the beneficiaries.”

The DSWD-NCR, together with the local government units, identified the street children and out-of-school children and youths in Metro Manila. Based on the rapid appraisal done in April 2013, a total of 3,072 street children are in the major thoroughfares of Metro Manila. Of these, Manila has the highest occurrence of street children with 774, followed by Quezon City with 504 and Caloocan with 348. The Kariton Klasrum project of DepED will benefit these street children who are under the Comprehensive program for street children, street families and indigenous peoples especially Sama Bajaus and Modified Conditional Cash Transfer.

The Kariton Klasrum in NCR will be initially implemented in the 27 identified Activity Centers for street children in 14 LGUs, which will follow a three (3) months completion cycle with at least 50 children per group. ###

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