When the pandemic struck, different news reports on the difficult situations of public school teachers around the country created a picture of the misery that the Education sector experienced and continues to confront in order to provide the quality of education that their kids deserve.
Despite the scarcity of resources, some teachers use their own savings to purchase the data connectivity required to teach their students’ lessons and communicate with their classes via online platforms.
The great sacrifices made by the public academe in this pandemic have created a public-private cooperation between the Department of Education and Smart, PLDT’s wireless subsidiary, to expand online learning and education, and, more significantly, to ensure that no teacher is left behind.
One million public school instructors will have the digital connectivity they require to make their everyday teaching chores easier and more feasible, addressing the need to empower educators in this indefinite crisis.
“Just as we believe that Filipino kids have the right to remain in school, we are committed to providing solutions for the Department of Education so that they may continue to support the faculty of government learning institutions across the country. Giving them access to the fastest and most reliable internet connectivity that enables their own learning and development, as well as empowers their online classes as they teach our youth wherever they are, is our way of honoring our public school teachers for their heroic efforts and sacrifices,” said Alfredo S. Panlilio, President and CEO of PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications.
“This is a critical opportunity to work with our government to ensure that no learner falls behind,” he continued.
Activated SIM cards pre-loaded with Smart Giga Study plans will be supplied to public school teachers for use in online teaching and learning, as well as communicating with their pupils, and will be subsidized by DepEd using monies sourced from Bayanihan 2, which Congress approved.
“This is part of our commitment to delivering on the Bayanihan 2 Act’s commitments. DepEd has assured that our personnel and teachers can efficiently provide basic education services to our learners notwithstanding the scenario, thanks to the support of our President, our lawmakers, and our field offices,” Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones stated.
This powerful project will provide teachers, who play a crucial role in delivering inclusive education, with the tools and connectivity they need to carry out their onerous daily task of giving quality online instruction to students.
“The Department has bought the sim cards and connectivity load from our external partner for all the teaching and non-teaching personnel to ensure ease of communication and unhampered delivery of services despite the crisis,” said DepEd Undersecretary Alain Del B. Pascua.
The project also contributes to DepEd’s goal of making public schools more robust and conducive to learning in the future.
“Parents – particularly those in the labor field – significantly rely on teachers to provide good advice for their children, making the role of teachers now even more crucial. Teachers, as the secondary parents of our students, have the most essential duty in shaping and motivating the leaders of the future,” stated Jovy I. Hernandez, ePLDT Group President & CEO and PLDT SVP and Head of PLDT and Smart Enterprise Business Groups.
“Teachers shape our children’s holistic development, which is why we strive to provide them with the latest tools that will allow them to provide greater advice to our students. We stand in solidarity with DepEd in ensuring that the future of education is adequately supported by the required resources for both instructors and students,” Hernandez added.
Both SIM cards issued by DepEd are linked to and supported by the CuroTeknika Helpdesk, which will supervise the disbursement of monthly loads for the recipients. These SIMs are powered by Smart LTE, which has been acknowledged by worldwide internet testing and analysis pioneer Ookla as the country’s fastest mobile data network, and Smart 5G in specific areas.
The Giga Study plans are a custom-tailored data package that provides customers with access to a variety of learning apps and productivity tools. Google Suite, which includes Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, Meet, and Drive, is available through Giga Study. Access to Microsoft 365 is also included in the data pack, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Teams, and OneDrive.
PLDT and Smart have been vocal supporters of the country’s aims to strengthen the education system and make it more digitally capable and globally competitive, for the benefit of both instructors and students.
When the pandemic disrupted the school year last year, Smart whitelisted the DepEd Commons site, the Department’s online education delivery platform, providing access to this site free for students and instructors using Smart even without data load even today. This provided them with access to a plethora of instructional resources for use in a variety of grade levels of curricula.
Source: ManilaBulletin