Senator Grace Poe is urging students in need of gadgets for online learning to avail of the loans offered by Land Bank of the Philippines.
The chairperson of the Senate banks committee said Land Bank's loan program will give students a "better shot" at online learning amid the persisting novel coranvirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
"For many families, the leap to digital has become prohibitively expensive. We must enable them to obtain devices as an investment for their children’s education," Poe said in a statement on Thursday, March 4.
On Wednesday (March 3), the Land Bank announced that it expanded its student loan program to include the purchase of electronic gadgets for online learning, such as laptops, desktop, or tablets.
The state-run bank said it will offer loans of up to P50,000 per student.
Poe, however, appealed to the Land Bank to make the guidelines and implementation of the loan program "friendly and simple, especially to poor families."
“The less complicated the processes are, the higher the likelihood we can draw more interest into this program," she said.
At the same time, Poe again asked telecommunication companies to improve their internet services so that students could "make full use of any digital device for online education."
"A laptop, tablet or smartphone will only be useful tools to the students during online classes if they can connect to the internet,” said the senator, who also chairs the Senate public services committee.
"Telcos should also step up so that connectivity will not continue to be a stumbling block to our children’s education,” she added.