PROMDI presidential aspirant Sen. Manny Pacquiao, claiming education is a great equalizer between the rich and the poor, has vowed to pursue a “one student, one gadget” program to create equal opportunities for poor students.
Poor students could hardly keep up with the demands of the “new normal” in the country’s educational system, he said in a statement released by his campaign headquarters Sunday.
Pacquiao also raised the need to attune the country’s educational system to the possibility of prolonged restrictions for face-to-face classes and urged the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to create long-term plans on the use of modular and digital platforms as the mode of instruction.
Pacquiao said the government must ensure no one is left behind by providing poor students the assistance that they sorely need.
Pacquiao said a very important component for poor students to cope with the demands of the “new normal” is having the gadgets they could use for online classes.
The world’s only eight-division boxing champion said he was determined to provide poor Filipinos all the support they needed to get an education, adding he knows first hand how difficult it is to be educated because of extreme poverty.
“I think that we have to be ready for prolonged limited face-to-face classes. We will provide every student their own devices to use for their online classes. If possible, we will also look into providing free internet connectivity to marginalized communities to use for online learning,” Pacquiao said.
He said this was not impossible if the gadgets would be funded by government savings from corruption, which is estimated at P700 billion to P1 trillion a year.