The Department of Education (DepEd) announced 93 percent of public schools nationwide have already received over 1 million devices and gadgets for use by students and teachers this upcoming school year.

DepEd Director for Information and Communications Technology Service (ICTS) Abram Abanil, in a recent virtual press briefing, said a total of 1,042,575 of these devices have been distributed to 43,948 public schools nationwide.

“These devices will be used to support online learning of students and to augment existing devices which are already at hand in our schools,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino. “This accounts for 93 percent of all schools that have computers, laptops, and tablets which can be used by the students."

Abanil noted these devices were procured as early as December.

“But because of COVID-19, the deliveries were affected but these will be done by the end of this year,” he explained.

By December 2020, Abanil said another 211,344 devices will be delivered to public schools nationwide.

As it prepares for the school opening on Oct. 5, Abanil said that DepEd ICTS continues to work on improving its systems.

“The systems that we deploy in the IT service are designed for smartphones, tablets, and desktops,” Abanil explained. “We are also ensuring that these will be ‘zero rate’ for telcos so the students can access these even without having any load."

Abanil also shared the DepEd will also employ a Learning Management System (LMS).

“This will enable teachers to create virtual classes,” he said. “They can also conduct online quizzes and carry out formative assessments."

To ensure the online safety of students, Abanil said that students will also be given their very own DepEd email account.

“By the end of August 31, we will be issuing official DepEd email accounts for all high school students and by Sept. 15 for elementary pupils,” he said. “These email accounts will be used to access the DepEd LMS."

When it comes to capacity building, Abanil said that DepEd has already trained 45% of teachers nationwide or 385,471 on ICT-based teaching through various online trainings.

“We have also prepared 1.5 hours of video lecture on how to use the LMS and we broadcasted this last Aug. 11 during our dry run,” he added.

The video lectures shown on TV, Abanil said, are for teachers who do not have access to the internet. He added that DepEd is now in the process of developing an orientation program for parents and students using television as a medium.

“This is to orient them on how to use the LMS before the resumption of classes,” he ended.