Thursday, August 09, 2007 Agency defends cyber education
THE Department of Education (DepEd) on Wednesday appealed to critics of the Cyber Education Project (CEP) to give it a chance to deliver quality education, improve public school administration and post billions of pesos of savings for the government.
"We urge those who have doubts to give cyber education a chance," said DepEd Undersecretary for Programs and Projects Vilma Labrador.
"It may be hard to see its benefits right now but we are confident the project will provide a cost-effective solution to the need to deliver educational services to public elementary and secondary schools throughout the country," she said.
In a statement, the DepEd will spend P5 billion for the first phase of the project. The project, which would be laid out starting in 2008, will be financed by an official development assistance loan from China.
Using satellite technology, cyber education will link all schools throughout the country to a nationwide network that will provide 12 video channels, wireless wide area networking, local area networking and wireless Internet connectivity. Schools will receive live broadcasts featuring lectures and presentations from master teachers. A total of 37,794 schools or 90 percent of all public schools nationwide would be connected in the next three years.
The CEP is expected to improve the delivery of basic education by enhancing student competence and upgrade the capabilities of teachers and school administrators. It also seeks to enhance school based management and internal controls.
"The Cyber Ed Project utilizes distance education technology that is proven effective, and is currently in use in other countries," said Director Jess Mateo of the department's Educational Program Implementing Task Force (Edpitaf).
Other countries that utilize satellite-based distance learning programs include the US, Canada, Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala, Honduras, Thailand, Indonesia, India and China. The project is also patterned after the success of the China Education and Research Network (Cernet), which serves 320 million school children and the E-Education Project, which provides almost the same Cyber Ed package to almost 500,000 schools and universities in China.
"We found the outcomes of these models as a very encouraging sign that it could also be done in our country," Mateo added.
Students and teachers stand to benefit from the wide array of quality educational materials that will be made available to them through cyber education. It will also enhance the capacity of the department to deliver quality teacher training to more than 400,000 public school teachers nationwide.
Cyber education also goes beyond mere distance education. It is also expected to make the monitoring of programs and projects easier and faster, as well as automate various administrative processes in the department, therefore minimizing delays.
In all, the project is expected to bring huge savings for the department, as it will save up to P60.3 billion, which could be reallocated to other priority programs of the department.
The project was approved by the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) in March 2007. It is in accordance with Framework Agreement on Bilateral Economic and Trade Cooperation, which was signed on January 15, 2007.
Militant congressman Teodoro Casiño criticized the Arroyo government's continuing murky attitude in pursuing the controversial CEP.
"A confused Malacañang and Department of Education are giving the public conflicting statements on the ambitious Cyber Education Project, allegedly one of five missing accords signed by the Philippine government with various Chinese companies and the Chinese government last April 21. This reveals a topsy-turvy executive effort to either continue or cover up a deal that is disadvantageous to the government in the long term," said Casiño.
He called the project a "major logistical problem that will add to the existing basic problems of dwindling budgets, classroom shortages, lack of books, chairs, laboratory facilities and teachers." (Press release)
