DepEd gets tablet computers to recover, preserve school records in Yolanda-hit areas

With help from a Turkish agency, the Department of Education is now using tablet computers to recover and preserve records of schools damaged by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency donated 40 Samsung tablets and turned them over last Nov. 29, the DepEd said Thursday.

“Restoring and preserving records is just as important as providing education. The most affected group here are graduating students,” DepEd Assistant Secretary Reynaldo Laguda was quoted as saying in an article posted on December 4 on the agency's website.

Laguda stressed the urgency in restoring as many school records as possible.

With the 40 units of donated tablets, the DepEd is now trying to retrieve school records that were soaked, soiled, or totally destroyed by Yolanda.

"This project also ensures the longevity of school documents from being further damaged by such calamities," he said.

Yolanda had left more than 5,600 people dead after battering the Visayas and parts of Southern Luzon last Nov. 8.

Laguda said they expect to bring the tablets to Leyte and Samar by next week.

“This assistance from TIKA would surely help speed up the process in bringing back normalcy to the students’ school calendar and would eventually sustain our schools in the prevention of the same problem in file storage for similar disasters in the future,” he said.

The DepEd said its effort to preserve the school records has four phases, including: