Last year, the Department of Education (DepEd) signed an agreement with hardware manufacturers to provide affordable laptops for public school teachers, launched as "LT4T". Here's an update.
In a conversation over lunch, a reliable source from DepEd informed our group that the project is on its final stages.
Under the LT4T program, every public school teacher and non-teaching DepEd employee will be entitled to one high-end laptop each, with the following schemes and features:
- Part of the total amount of the laptop will be shouldered by the department while the remaining percentage will be at the expense of the teacher-beneficiary, payable in zero-interest monthly installments.
- The laptop is powered by a new licensed Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.
- It has pre-installed open-source software programs harvested from the internet that are compatible to the current curricular offerings of public schools.
- It contains interactive teaching guides that can be used to make classroom instruction more interesting and effective. These include a proforma of lesson plans and student grading system among others.
Nevertheless, if the LT4T program will push through, teachers in the Philippines will have laptops at a 1:1 ratio. It will be the first in Asia.