Tinio to DepEd: ‘Give every teacher a laptop’

The recent procurement of the Department of Education (DepEd) of 172,654 MacBook Neo units falls short of meeting the needs of the large population of public school teachers in the Philippines, leaving a majority of educators having to fund their own equipment, a lawmaker said.

ACT Teacher’s Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio expressed his dismay with the recent deal that the DepEd struck with tech giant Apple, claiming that the department failed when it came to following through on its promises.

“We understand the urgency of arming our educators with dependable digital tools, but DepEd has no business touting this deal as if it delivers on its long-standing promise of a laptop for every teacher,” Tinio said in a statement on Thursday.

The lawmaker said that teachers having to carry the burden of shouldering costs for materials that are used in educational institutions had gone on for generation after generation.

Tinio stressed that some teachers were being forced to take out loans just to purchase their own laptops to adapt to the “ever-expanding demands of their profession.”

“It is an outright injustice: workers already surviving on meager salaries, drowning in paperwork, and shortchanged on benefits are being pushed further into debt just to be able to work,” he explained.

With the current administration expressing its satisfaction with the deal, Tinio sought to remind the government to ensure that the laptops were fairly priced and working given the precedence of faulty equipment being acquired by the agency.

He further noted that while the initiative was a positive step, there was still a need for the nation’s leaders to maintain persistent funding for the education sector to equip teachers with the essentials needed to perform their duty.

“No school should have to resort to lotteries or contest-style distribution just to decide which of its workers get the tools of their trade. These are necessities, not prizes,” he said.

“Our demand stands: a laptop for every teacher, and public funds that genuinely reach our schools and education workers,” he added.

It is worth noting that the MacBook Neo units that were procured by the government from Apple were bought at a marked down price of P43,000, totaling P7.4 billion for all 172,654 units.

The purchase boosted the number of laptops awarded under DepEd’s Computerization Program to 231,725.