ASSERTING that 857,000 public school teachers deserve an Internet allowance to spare them from extra expense in shifting to online learning when classes resume on August 24, Sen. Grace Poe backed a proposal for the Department of Education to grant an additional P1,500 monthly Internet allowance estimated to cost DepEd P1.2 billion per month.
The P12.855 billion total for 10 months is justified, Poe said, because teachers need the money to “unburden them of the extra expense with the shift to online learning in the coming academic year.” She was referring to the “blended learning” approach that the DepEd and education stakeholders have set for the 2020-2021 school year, as forced by the circumstances created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pursuing the proposal by filing Senate Resolution No. 456, Poe prodded Malacañang to grant the additional Internet allowance to public elementary and secondary school teachers for the duration of the online classes, seen to be the new learning mode to curb the spread of Covid-19.
President Duterte had earlier declared he would not sanction face-to-face classes until a vaccine against Covid-19 is found.
Meanwhile, Poe suggested that the Duterte administration also “encourage and assist” private schools to provide a similar Internet allowance to their teachers.
This, as Poe computed that the P3,500 one-time cash assistance proposed by the Department of Education (DepEd), converted from the teachers’ existing chalk allowance, was not enough to sustain their connectivity needs throughout the period of online classes.
In a statement, Poe prodded DepEd officials to come up with an arrangement allowing teachers to “avail of discounts for their Internet load to get them through their obligations for the online education.”
Poe asserted it is ‘high time” that the government provide additional allowance to teachers to upgrade their digital access and technological capacity, as well as “ensure they are well-equipped to continually assure quality education to their students in this time of pandemic.”
The senator said a pending proposal from a teachers’ group pitching for a P1,500 a month Internet allowance, computing the total cost at P12.855 billion for 10 months, is “only 4 percent the total of $6.4 billion loans incurred by the government to support the Covid-19 response efforts.”
She said scenes of teachers climbing mountains, crossing rivers or sitting along the highways just to get a signal should not be part of our online education system under the new normal, stressing that “their dedication and hard work to mold our youth should be matched by crucial infrastructure to make learning effective.”
At the same time, Senator Poe confirmed that the Senate Committee on Public Services is poised to hold hearings on Internet connectivity to look at enabling poor students across the country to “have a stable Internet access.”