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Friday, June 30, 2006
DTI to give more PCs for public schools on July
THE Phase 3 of the Department of Trade and Industry Personal Computers (PCs) for Public Schools Project kicks off with a regional orientation workshop attended by more than 200 stakeholders mostly school principals and teachers from the different recipient schools in the region, recently.
It was the third leg of the regional tour conducted by the DTI's Office of Special Concerns (OSC), the Department of Education (DepEd) and Advance Solutions Inc.
Lydia Guevarra of DTI's OSC along with DepEd-ICT Chairman Jesus Huenda came to orient the group. Under the PCPS Phase 3 project, 1,200 public high schools nationwide are recipient of 12,000 computers. Deployment starts in July.
The PCPS 3 project is an off-shoot of PCPS project initiated by former DTI Secretary and now Senator Mar Roxas. Roxas secured an initial fund of P600 million from an Official Development Assistance (ODA) from the Government of Japan through the Non-Project Grant Assistance Facility. The project was a success that it was replicated until the stewardship of DTI Secretary Peter B. Favila.
Data revealed that for the Phase 1 and 2 projects, the DTI has completed deployment of 32,240 computers to 2,228 public high schools nationwide composed of 1,167 schools in Luzon, 569 schools in Visayas and 492 schools in Mindanao.
Since then, the project has increased computer access in public secondary education system from 31 percent in SY 2000-2001 to 71 percent in SY 2001-2002.
The computer backlog is now reduced to 29 percent schools still without computer access.
With the computer laboratory and computer education course being implemented by the DepEd, 500,000 high school students were empowered and 24,389 school-based teachers were trained with IT nationwide.
These lead to the Development of IT Competencies for both students and teachers. PCPS schools, teachers and students have actively participated and won awards in local and international IT-related contests such as DepEd's Students Technology and Entrepreneurs of the Philippines (Step), Microsoft's Innovative Teachers' Award, and International Cyber Awards.
The teachers and students have also demonstrated competencies in the use of computers for both academic and extra curricular activities such as lesson plans, research, school publications, administrative tasks, and records management.
The schools now serve as Community IT Learning and Resource Center wherein IT training and computing services are offered in the community. The computers in the schools were also used as a tool for Community Resource Mobilization.
It brought together community stakeholders such as teachers, Parent Teachers Community Associations (PTCAs), Local Government Units, and Non-Government Organizations in ensuring project sustainability in their locality through additional resource put-in in the form of cash and in-kind donations.
In Region 6, DTI Regional Director Dominic P. Abad said that 145 public high schools in the six provinces were identified to be recipients of the Phase 3 project. Each school will receive 10 computers complete with peripherals and LAN connections.
These are from Aklan -16, Antique-20, Capiz-25, Guimaras-5, Iloilo-40, and Negros Occidental-39. Trainings for the teachers will be made available by the Department of Education while testing of software and units will be handled by the Department of Science and Technology.
In the Phase 1 of the project, 96 public high schools received 20 computers each complete with peripherals while 124 schools were benefited under Phase 2 with 10 computers each complete with peripherals.
With the addition of Phase 3, a total of 365 public high schools are recipient of 4,610 computers complete with peripherals, empowering thousands of students and hundreds of teachers in the region.
Abad emphasized the need to be competitive in Information Technology to meet the demands of the global market. With DTI's PCPS 3 project, more schools will be upgraded with IT and more students and teachers will be empowered.
(June 30, 2006 issue)
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