THE DEPARTMENT of Education bolstered the digital transformation in public schools by distributing Adobe Creative Cloud Licenses to enhance the digital literacy skills of teachers and students.

The Office of the Undersecretary for Administration, through the Information and Communications Technology Service, partnered with Adobe to procure around 108,000 licenses and the Creative Nation Academy on sharing knowledge and expertise on the use of these tools. The creative licenses were activated after distribution.

The Adobe Creative Cloud is a comprehensive collection of Adobe desktop software and mobile applications under one umbrella. This can be accessed through an Adobe Federated ID linked with the respective school email address, which was already made available by January 15, 2022.

“DepEd must provide these licenses to our public schools because we are now in the creative development era. Anyone can be a content creator due to the simplification and adaptability of existing mobile devices where learning and design can blend as one,” DepEd Undersecretary for Administration Alain Pascua said

DepEd, he added, is preparing learners to be globally inclined and encouraging them to use industry-standard software to give them greater opportunities of landing a job.

Mark Sy, ICTS-Educational Technology Unit head, said that it is important to open gateways to the teaching force since they are the ones molding learners’ skills.

“If we do not provide them with these tools, we cannot have competitive graduates who will help the Philippines in [raising] global digital skills standards that contribute to nation-building,” Sy explained.

Webinars on the various productivity tools and design software were conducted by DepEd through the Digital Rise Program to ensure that all schools will have appropriate tools and software in promoting technological advancements. Moreover, it also aims to enhance teachers’ creativity in digital and multimedia arts.

“Another program of the ICTS-EdTech unit is the provision of Adobe CC licenses to teachers who have qualified and passed the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 course offered by the Adobe Education Exchange program. In this way, we can say that our DepEd teachers have proven their skills which are at an international standard,” Sy said.