SMART Communications, Inc. and Save the Children Philippines formed a partnership and donated P800,000 worth of gadgets that would serve as virtual classrooms for communities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Four portable digital classrooms dubbed as School-in-a-Bag were given to schools in Lumba-Bayabao, Lanao del Sur, including an Integrated Madrasah.

Madrasah Education is a comprehensive program in public and private schools that aims to provide basic education within the context of Muslim culture, customs, traditions, and interests through the integration of the Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education.

The School-in-a-Bag is a water-resistant backpack that contains a laptop for the teacher, 20 tablets for students to access award-winning interactive applications even if offline, and a Smart LTE pocket WiFi that teachers can use to download additional content wherever there is power and connectivity.

Each School-in-a-Bag costs P200,000.

Last year, Smart deployed 86 School-in-a-Bag packages.

A #LearnSmart initiative, the virtual and portable classrooms are designed to provide access to technology, connectivity, content, and disaster-resilient learning strategies even for schools in remote areas without electricity.

Teacher beneficiaries of Smart and Save the Children’s School-in-a-Bag packages will also be trained on the Central Visayan Institute Foundation-Dynamic Learning Program, a pandemic-resilient strategy that supports distance learning and works in both online and offline delivery modalities.

The CVIF-DLP is one of three supplemental learning materials endorsed by the Department of Education for the school year 2020-2021.

Ready-to-use Junior and Senior High School CVIF-DLP Learning Activity Sheets can be downloaded for free from DepEd Commons at www.commons.deped.gov.ph.

“The deployment supports Save the Children Philippines educational work in BARMM and the aspiration of our Muslim brothers and sisters toward inclusive development,” Smart Community Partnerships Vice President Darwin F. Flores said.

Atty. Alberto Muyot, Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children Philippines, said access to information and communication technology is critical to address the digital divide between children in highly urbanized areas and those from poor households and living in remote and conflict-affected areas in Mindanao.

The partnership will support Save the Children’s implementation of the “Safe Schools of the Future” program in BARMM areas.  The program is also being supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

“We are honored to partner with Smart Communications in fulfilling the rights of children to have access to inclusive and quality education especially during the massive school closures due to the Covid19 pandemic,” Muyot said.