A deeply concerned employee of the Department of Education sent me an e-mail, asking me to look into the “long overdue deliveries” of technical and vocational learning equipment for several schools in the provinces. The project is worth billions of pesos.
The email sender, who requested anonymity, said the learning equipment is meant for the repair and maintenance courses offered in the senior high school level. These cover television sets, refrigerators, airconditioners, and computers.
They were bid out by the Department of Education in 2017 but the equipment reportedly has yet to be delivered to various schools to this day.
According to my informant, the multi-billion peso projects are under the Technical, Vocational, and Livelihood (TVL) division of DepEd administered by Director Mario Laroza.
I have been trying to get Laroza’s reaction through DepEd’s landline but he could not be reached for the past couple of days.
I’m sure the public, particularly the recipient schools of those learning materials, could not wait to hear from Director Laroza himself why there has been a delay in delivery of these educational materials for almost two years now.
My informant over at DepEd claims that the delay had deprived the students who graduated last year, and possibly this year too, the opportunity to learn the knowledge and skills of using the equipment. Thus, they may be lacking proper training. This is quite an alarming scenario.
It behooves Education Secretary Leonor Briones to look into this urgent matter immediately to make sure that those learning tools worth billions of pesos are delivered to the schools and not end up as ghost projects.
As for Laroza, I’m sure he is aware that the President hates red tape and corruption in the government.