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MANILA -- The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Sunday urged teachers to refrain from giving homework and projects that are graded based on "likes" fetched on social media.

Children may risk sharing their private data just to get more likes online for these school requirements, which have been the subject of several complaints recently received by the agency, DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio told reporters.

"Imbes na mag-assignment yung bata o gumawa ng project, maglalaro na sa social media," added DICT Assistant Secretary Allan Cabanlong, who heads the agency's cybersecurity division.

(Instead of doing the assignment or project, children would play on social media.)

DICT is coordinating with education officials to draft a memorandum circular on the issue.

"It wouldn't hurt to issue a memorandum like that to focus on the problem at hand," Commission on Higher Education Chairman Prospero De Vera said in a phone interview.