Cebu City gov’t to ‘loan out’ tablets to students in 2 pilot barangays

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City government will be providing tablets to public school students of two barangays in Cebu City to help them in their distance learning. 

Mayor Edgardo Labella said in a phone conference with reporters on Saturday, October 10, 2020, that the Carreta Elementary School and Labangon Elementary School would be the beneficiaries for the first batch of tablets. 

There are no definite number of tablets yet as the mayor said the city government would not necessarily give out the tablets. 

Instead, it will be loaned out to the students for use through an “electronics library.”

“Unlike in other LGUs (local government units), we will not give out the tablets because that is a waste of resources. We will loan out the tablets to the pupils so that other pupils can also use the tablet,” said Labella. 

The system would be like that of a library where students can check out and return the tablets after a few days or a week of use. 

“If it proves to be effective, we will provide more tablets,” said the mayor.

Read: In Cebu City, public school pupils to get free tablets instead of school supplies, uniforms

In earlier statements, Labella already said that the city would hold in abeyance the distribution of school supplies and uniforms to public school students because the new distance learning would not require them to do so.

The local finance committee is looking into realigning the P500 million budget for the school supplies to the tablets instead. 

The mayor said they would be targetting the distribution of the tablets within the year or before the year ends. /dbs