CATCH UP FRIDAYS OR TGI FRIDAY?

NYSSA D. RAMOS, EDD

You might have heard of the term “Catch Up Fridays” on your child’s school website or your school’s social media page. This is a term mandated by DepEd Memorandum 001 s. 2024 which dedicates half of every Friday to reading and the other half to values, peace and health education. The program's strategic design aims to strengthen social, foundational, and other relevant abilities that are necessary for achieving the objectives of the basic education curriculum. Its main goal is to help students become more proficient writers, critical thinkers, readers, and analysts.

Perhaps, it is a catchy phrase, and the goal is motivating, but this isn’t new to teachers. Before “Catch Up Fridays,” there was already a DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) which also showcases teachers creativity to create reading materials and spend time with their students in reading. Now that Catch Up Fridays has immediately taken over the spotlight, it left teachers and even school heads unprepared as they did even not undergo proper orientation on how the program would be implemented. The concern is while reading classes focus on 'reading' more texts, they do not necessarily help the students improve their reading skills it's not going to solve the issue of having more and more nonreaders. This is proof that DepEd issues directives without prior consultation with the teachers. Since this program is said to only last until the last Friday of January, the question lies on its reconsideration of should teachers just drop everything, enjoy, and just thank God it’s Friday!

-oOoThe author is a Teacher III of San Fransisco Elementary School, Division of Mabalalacat City