Government procurement delays and structural funding shortfalls continue to shift the financial burden of basic instructional technology directly onto public school educators across the country.
Teachers’ groups said the Department of Education’s (DepEd) planned distribution of 172,654 laptops will still leave the vast majority of public school teachers without government-provided devices, renewing calls for a dedicated laptop allocation for every educator.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines noted that the latest equipment procurement, even when combined with previously contracted units, remains vastly insufficient to address the needs of nearly 900,000 public school teachers.
“For decades, teachers and education support personnel have been forced to pay out of pocket for tools and resources that the government should rightfully provide,” ACT chairperson Ruby Bernardo said.
Bernardo said teachers continue to shoulder the financial cost of basic work equipment despite lower salaries, heavy workloads, and inadequate benefits.
Meanwhile, the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) welcomed the upcoming laptop rollout but urged DepEd to prioritize classroom teachers, many of whom have borrowed funds or spent their own salaries to buy replacement equipment.
TDC national chairperson Benjo Basas noted that numerous teachers had taken out personal loans to purchase laptops, only for those devices to deteriorate before long-promised government-issued hardware reached them.
Basas stressed that laptops, internet connectivity, printers, and auxiliary electronic devices are now indispensable tools required for building instructional materials, encoding student marks, filing administrative reports, and communicating with learners and parents.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara said the distribution of the 172,654 Apple MacBook Neo units will commence on November 9.
Of the total procurement batch, 169,008 units are designated for classroom teachers, while 3,646 are allocated for administrative personnel. DepEd noted that each laptop was purchased for roughly P43,000, below Apple’s suggested retail price of P49,900, and includes a five-year equipment warranty.