MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) announced Thursday that it will hold a six-week summer pre-school education program (SumPSE) in all schools nationwide starting next month.

The program, which will run from April 12 to May 21, will cater to prospective Grade 1 entrants without pre-school experience by June 2010. Each class will have 20 to 25 students.

Permanent pre-school teachers and Grade 1 teachers with Early Childhood education training will handle the summer pre-school classes, and will be paid an honorarium of P4,500.

"This SumPSE program is part of the expanded pre-school education to ensure that all Grade 1 entrants shall have the necessary preparations to make them ready for academic work," DepEd secretary Jesli Lapus said in a statement.

Citing studies, DepEd said attaining success in the first grade encourages school children to stay on and complete elementary education.

It added that the quality of children's pre-school experiences determine their performance in the higher years.

"DepEd recognizes this, thus the need to continuously expand and intensify the early childhood care and development coverage among pre-school children," Lapus said.

DepEd said its Bureau of Elementary Education has implemented its pre-school program since the 1970s, but as of 2008, only 919,800 (or 42%) pre-school children from public and private schools have been reached by the project.

This, the department said, has resulted in low readiness of Grade 1 children and a higher incidence of non-readers and dropouts.

With SumPSE, Lapus said DepEd is planning to raise the number of 5-year-old children with pre-school experience to 1.65 million (or 76% of the total) by year 2010.

”DepEd recognizes this, thus the need to continuously expand and intensify the early childhood care and development coverage among preschool children,” Lapus stressed.