INCLUSIVE EDUCATION. The Department of Education (DepEd) and Microsoft Corp. kick off a virtual ceremony for the "Inclusion and Accessibility Week" on Monday (April 4, 2022). During the online event, the DepEd vowed to keep promoting inclusive education for all, especially for learners with disabilities, through the aid of technology. (Screengrab) MANILA - The Department of Education (DepEd), in partnership with Microsoft Corp., on Monday vowed to promote inclusive and accessible education for learners with disabilities (LWDs) through the use of technology. In a virtual celebration, the DepEd kicked off a week-long celebration of "Inclusion and Accessibility 2022" with an emphasis on digital modalities being maximized to uphold the rights of learners, including those with special needs, to equitable education. "Learners with disabilities are part of society and have the same rights as other people to take their place in the society, their right shall not be perceived as welfare services of the state," DepEd Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio said. San Antonio stressed the need to proactively commit to providing equal access to more opportunities, despite various challenges. "The reason why it may be so hard to fully advance implementation is that there is a much larger invisible part under the waterline, this invisible part is composed of the interests, beliefs, motivations, and fears of those involved in the education, teachers, and communities included," he noted. Microsoft-Philippines Public sector director Joanna Rodriguez said that while the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has posed a challenge to the government's campaign for inclusivity, several digital breakthroughs have been introduced to help promote it in a hybrid learning setup. Rodriguez mentioned features that were specifically designed for the benefit of LWDs, which are freely available on different devices. These include immersive readers, dark mode (to reduce eye strain), PowerPoint live (allows access and sharing of contents), accessibility checker, dictate (use of voice to create documents, emails, presentations, and other content), designer (for polishing of document and work for document), reading progress on the artificial intelligence-powered free tool, among others. "The interruption of face-to-face learning brought about by the pandemic affecting millions of our learners particularly challenged the special education sector. But we in Microsoft remain very hopeful as we have seen in the face of unprecedented circumstances, many purposeful and life-saving, and lasting innovations that our Philippine government agencies have applied with the use of technology in the last two years," she said. "Microsoft's assistive technologies and accessibility features built into Office 365 are available to anyone who needs tools for those with challenges in vision, hearing, neurodiversity, learning mobility, and even mental health," she added. (PNA) }