US teams up with Smart to donate PHP 10M worth of laptops and tablets!

According to the US Embassy in Manila, the United States has learning tools for schools here in the Philippines.

Contents of School-in-a-Bag (Photo from Smart Communications website)

To help enable education through technology in the Philippines!

At least 100 "school-in-a-bag" kits were turned over to select schools in Bicol, Western Visayas, Maguindanao, Cotabato Special Geographic Area, Cotabato City, and other schools associated with the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) remote learning study. USAID Philippines Acting Deputy Mission Director Brandon Miller said,

Through the Smart School-in-a-Bag initiative, we will be able to advance digital literacy amid and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in remote areas that lack access to technology. We will continue to forge partnerships with the private sector, local government units, and local communities so that every child has access to quality education.

The initiative is spearheaded by USAID  in collaboration with Smart Communications and Philippine Business for Social Progress. The Department of Education was tapped to distribute the kits to schools.

Basically, School-in-a-Bag is a portable digital classroom designed to facilitate learning in basic education in remote areas without electricity. It utilizes mobile technology coupled with innovative 21st-century teaching instruction and K+12 content to enable learning.

Smart explains that each kit contains a laptop computer, 10 tablets with one terabyte of memory each, and pocket Wi-Fi preloaded with PHP 500 worth of internet access. These tablets in the kit will come with e-resources such as DepEd TV episodes, interactive literacy primers in mother tongue languages, USAID-supported e-books, and other digital resources.

Allegedly, these educational tools can bridge the digital divide and improve early grade reading, especially for students in the most remote areas of the country. DepEd Undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio commended the organizations behind this cause. He also said that Bayanihan is very much alive in DepEd even as they face very difficult challenges to make sure that learning will continue.

There are two ways we can support this ongoing initiative, either through sponsorship from your organization or nomination of a school if you are an official there.

If you are interested you may visit the official website of Smart Communications.

Source: Philippine News Agency