Free Internet access in all public schools nationwide pressed

SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian pressed concerned government agencies to fast-track the installation of free WI-FI connections in all public schools nationwide, as suggested by Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte.

In filing Senate Bill No. 383, known as the Digital Transformation in Basic Education Act, Gatchalian noted that five years after the enactment of the Free Internet Access in Public Places Act (Republic Act No. 10929), the Free Public Wi-fi Dashboard revealed only 860 or 1.8 percent of the country's 47,421 public schools have free public Wi-fi as of September 2, 2022.

Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, reminded everyone how the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the digital divide, which mostly affected learners in poorer households.

He noted that based on a 2021 survey by the World Bank on lowincome households, only 40 percent have access to the Internet, adding that the same survey, likewise, revealed that 95.5 percent of these households used paper-based learning modules and materials.

The senator recalled lessons learned from previous pandemics, saying: “If we revisit the lessons from the pandemic, we will see that technology is a vital part of education, especially in the middle of a crisis. Part of our efforts to stabilize the education sector is ensuring that every school has free Internet in order to deliver quality education.”

Gatchalian reminded that the Digital Transformation in Basic Education Act also seeks to escalate the building of the national infrastructure for Information and Communications Technology (ICT), adding that the proposed measure will mandate the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to identify locations for the construction of telecommunications tower sites, while ”missionary areas which remain unconnected, unserved, or underserved will be prioritized.”

Moreover, the Gatchalian bill also aims to boost the capacity of all schools to “enhance and strengthen their ICT capacity to implement distance learning .”

The senator added: “To boost the basic education sector towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will assist both Department of Education (Deped) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on the use of science, technology, and innovation to improve traditional teaching and learning processes.”