The Manila city government will be distributing mobile devices and SIM cards to students and teachers in the city next week to equip them for the new learning set-up amid the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) crisis.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday (Aug. 11), the Manila Public Information Office (MPIO) said the city government appropriated a budget of over P1 billion to buy 11,000 laptops with pocket WiFi devices for teachers and 136,950 tablet devices for students.
The Division of City Schools (DCS)-Manila also received 286,000 SIM cards with 10 GB monthly allotment of bandwidth to be distributed to both students and teachers.
The enrollment of public school students in Manila spiked compared to the previous year, even amid a pandemic, after Manila Mayor Francisco "Isko Moreno" Domagoso announced that the city government will provide students with gadgets and internet access in preparation for the blended distance learning set-up.
"This will certainly help our learners and their instructors ensure internet connectivity during classes," DCS Superintendent Maria Magdalena Lim said.
"We thank our city government for their unwavering efforts and support in making sure that the shift to blended distance learning will not be a problem for our teachers and students in Manila," she added.
The opening of classes for academic year 2020 to 2021 will be on Aug. 24, the Department of Education (DepEd) said. Face-to-face classes are still discouraged because of the risk of COVID-19 infection.