The Department of Education (DepEd) has already distributed the first cycle of monthly load for 277,381 teachers and non-teaching personnel.

In a statement on Tuesday, DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones said the allowance for internet connectivity load is stipulated under Republic Act 11494 or the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2).

“Given the situation, we recognize the need to provide connectivity load for our teachers as support for their passion in teaching amidst the pandemic,” Briones stated.

Each teacher or personnel will receive a total of 102 gigabytes of data that will be rationed over three months at 34 GB per month.

To ensure optimum usage, DepEd said the SIM (subscriber identity module) card is designed for usage at 1GB of daily data access specific for eLearning applications and zero-rated DepEd apps.

An additional 4GB per month is provided for open data access for other apps.

The load must be refreshed daily to ensure maximum data for the month.

“Analytics consumption data show that 1GB per day for 30 days is more than enough to access eLearning apps,” DepEd Undersecretary for Administration Alain Del Pascua said.

Pascua said unused data from the plan will be rolled over after the third month and will be loaded as 1GB per day until all data allocations are consumed.

Unused data must be utilized before the one-year expiration.

SIM card recipients who started using connectivity loads in July began the cycle of regular monthly load on Aug. 3 while the rest of the beneficiaries will get their monthly load by Aug. 25.

An exclusive DepEd Hotline (#DEPED or #33733) has been set up for the DepEd SIM card recipients to address the concerns of teachers regarding the program.

Bayanihan 2 also has provision for teachers’ laptops, DepEd television and radio, learning modules, and subsidies and allowances. (PNA)