Teachers’ group says most laptops from DepEd not yet received by teachers

On Sunday, Sept. 19, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said that most of the laptops purchased by the Department of Education (DepEd) have not yet received by public school teachers.

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ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio made this comment after DepEd Undersecretary Alain Pascua claimed that a total of 353,359 laptops have already been provided to teachers procured under the 2019 national budget and Bayanihan 2.

We ask DepEd, in the spirit of transparency, where are these laptops and are they serving the purpose of aiding teachers in distance learning? We’re afraid that without such honest accounting, we won’t be able to truly determine how much more laptops should be budgeted,

Basilio demanded.

He said that Pascua’s claim was far from the truth.

According to a survey conducted by ACT from August 23–31, 2021, it showed that only 7% of teachers from the National Capital Region (NCR) and 14% from other regions will be using DepEd-issued laptops for school year 2021–2022.

ACT said that the allegedly, 211,000 laptops purchased in 2019 were not reflected in the 2019 budget of DepEd. It said that Pascua was perhaps referring to the total number of laptops many years ago up to 2019 where numerous of which are no longer serviceable or had specs that does not meet the requirements of distance learning.

The remaining relatively new and more serviceable laptops from 2020-2021 only accounts for 142,359 units. This would mean that about 693,585 teachers are still without a DepEd-issued laptop.

Basilio also claimed that not all the 142,359 laptops were given to teachers and went to officers rather than to classroom teachers.

As such, Usec. Pascua’s claims on their laptop provision for about 42% of teachers now becomes suspect at best, an outright lie at worst,

Basilio said.

Basilio also pointed out that Pascua gave an inflated amount of P33 billion budget needed to give laptops to all public school teachers since the agency is only buying units that costs around P25, 000.

Therefore, to cover DepEd’s actual backlog of 693,585 teachers, it only needs Php17.4-B—nearly half of what DepEd claimed it needed,

Basilio stressed.

Basilio further urged lawmakers to investigate DepEd’s computation as they address the budget of DepEd for 2022.

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