AT LEAST 58 percent of Filipino students aged 5 to 20 use devices for distance learning, a recent Social Weather Stations survey showed.

The survey, conducted from November 21 to 25 in 2020, found that 27 percent of the students had their own gadgets before distance learning started, 12 percent bought gadgets for distance learning, 10 percent borrowed their devices and nine percent said the gadgets were given to them.

The SWS survey also revealed that more students availed themselves of gadgets for online learning in rural areas.

It found that 86 percent of students in rural areas use smartphones and 19 percent use laptops or desktop computers. In urban areas, 74 percent use smartphones and 19 percent use desktops or laptops for distance learning.

The survey also showed that students spent an average of P8,687 in buying gadgets for their studies.

The pollster conducted 1,500 face-to-face interviews for the survey. It interviewed 600 students in Balance Luzon and 300 each in Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao.

An earlier SWS survey revealed that an estimated 23.8 million school-age Filipinos participated in Modular Distance Learning, 4.3 million in Online Distance Learning, 302,000 exclusively in face-to-face classes and 38,000 used TV/radio-based instructions.