A network of digital advocates called on to the Department of Education to ensure that the procurement of equipments that will be used for blended learning will be corruption-free.
Digital Pinoys national campaigner Ronald Gustilo said that the anomalous Celeron laptop deal should not make a repeat under the education department’s plan to institutionalize blended learning.
“Now that DepEd is intending to institutionalize blended learning, they should ensure that the procurement of equipments to be used in the program will not be involved in any form of corruption. We have seen the Celeron laptop mess already and the public does not want any similar incident to take place.”
It can be recalled that the Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management supplied the Department of Education with Celeron-powered laptops priced at P58,000 from Sunwest Construction and Development Corporation and LDLA marketing and trading, Inc.
Netizens, cause-oriented groups and lawmakers immediately placed DepEd, PS-DBM and the contractors on notice as they have noticed that laptops with more powerful processors and more cheaper than the celeron laptops are available in the market.
Gustilo also said that should the institutionalization of blended learning will push through, the education department needs to impose mechanisms to ensure that the bids of the suppliers are fair and will match or exceed the specifications needed by students and teachers.
“There should be a mechanism in place that will ensure that the needs of the teachers and students will match the equipments that will be purchased. It should at least be able to handle school productivity applications such as online meeting apps, microsoft office and other essential applications. By ensuring these, the procurement of new gadgets will not be put into waste.”
Gustilo added that DepEd should also ensure that the gadgets is secured by equipping it with softwares that will ensure its safety such as anti-virus software, digital safety vaults for documents and other files, among others.###
