Manila gov’t to distribute free gadgets to students, teachers on August 26

The Manila City Government will start to distribute free gadgets to teachers and students from more than 100 public schools in Manila starting on Wednesday, August 26.

According to Tina Panganiban-Perez’s report on “24 Oras,” 11,000 laptops and a pocket WiFi with 10GB of data are reserved for teachers while 136,950 tablets with sim cards holding 10GB of data are reserved for students.

Small tablets will be given to students in Kinder to Grade 3 while big tablets will be given to students in Grade 4 to Grade 12.

The applications needed by the students as well as the modules which will be covered during the school year are already installed in the tablets.

“That’s 10GB. 10GB is more than enough kung sa eskwelahan mo lang gagamitin,” Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno said.

The local government is planning to buy more tablets as the number of enrollees exceeded the number expected by authorities. Due to this, the initial P1.64 billion budget was increased by up to P150 billion.

“Kung maaalala ninyo, maraming lumipat from private to public. Eh, syempre, as a believer of educcation [that] education can be made available to everybody,  as much as possible free. In this case, meron kaming nadagdagan na mga 25,000 na estudyante na transferee from private schools,” Moreno said.

The Manila City Government has already conducted the ceremonial turn-over to the Manila Division of City Schools. A total of 107 public schools, composed of 72 elementary schools and 35 high schools, will receive the gadgets.

The gadgets will remain  the property of the local government. They cannot be sold and parents will be held accountable should they go missing. — Joahna Lei Casilao/BM, GMA News