DepEd prioritizes teachers without issued laptops
Schools that have never received laptops for individual teacher use will be first in line for the Department of Education's (DepEd) distribution of 231,725 newly procured devices, with teachers who have never been issued a government laptop also getting priority within their schools.
In a 6 November memorandum, DepEd set the allocation and selection rules for its Laptops for Teachers (L4T) program, citing insufficient supply to cover the country's approximately 900,000 public school teachers.
“These quantities remain insufficient to provide a laptop to each of the approximately 900,000 public school teachers nationwide. Distribution shall therefore be prioritized to address gaps in laptop access,” the memorandum stated.
The department said distribution would begin with schools that have not previously received laptops for individual issuance to teachers, whether from DepEd, other government agencies, local government units or donations formally accepted by schools.
Within each school, teachers will be ranked according to their access to functional devices, teaching responsibilities and digital readiness.
The first priority covers teachers who have never received an individually issued laptop and demonstrate educational technology (EdTech) leadership. These may include Educational Technology Champions, information and communications technology coordinators and Khan Academy teachers.
The second priority covers other teachers who have never received an individually issued laptop, while eligible previous recipients whose devices were declared unserviceable and decommissioned, lost or rendered unusable by a calamity, or stolen will be considered third.
Seniority, position and non-teaching duties will not give teachers an advantage in the selection, the guidelines state.
To qualify, teachers must have an active teaching assignment and must not possess a serviceable government- or school-issued laptop individually assigned to them from 1 January 2023 to 6 November 2026. Shared equipment and personally purchased laptops are exempt.
If qualified teachers outnumber available units within a priority group, schools must conduct a drawing of lots witnessed by a teacher representative and the school property custodian. Results and ranked alternates must be recorded in the Teacher Assignment for Laptop Allocation (TALA) system.
School heads must finalize recipient lists through TALA by 15 November. The rollout is scheduled to begin 9 November, with deliveries expected to continue through March 2027.