MANILA – The Department of Education (DepEd) will be allocation P700 million of its budget to provide internet connections to over 7,000 public schools nationwide.
The government allocation is in preparation for the country’s shift to the ‘new normal’ as distance learning are becoming more and more common in the coming school year due the coronavirus pandemic.
President Duterte, in his 14th weekly report to Congress on the government’s pandemic response, said the DepEd was in the process of acquiring internet access for 7,000 schools to boost the total number of public schools with internet access this year.
DepEd has been open to consider other alternatives to face to face learning as the upcoming school year starts this August 24.
The target completion of the project will be in March or April 2021.
Online distance learning such as Teaching with the use of radio and television will also be practiced for those students who does not have access to the computer or internet.
Through a memorandum, Duterte said that Teachers can bring home DepEd-acquired devices for online teaching use. The Department of Information and Communications (DICT), On the other hand, has teamed up with “leading teacher education institutions” to develop a nationwide Digital Teachers Training Program to “to strengthen digital capabilities for both teachers and students as a response to the new normal”
