BALANGA CITY, Bataan -- A British company on Monday, September 24, tied up with the City Government of Balanga and the Provincial Government of Bataan to provide digital aid or platform to lessen the burden of teachers and help improve the learning capacity of students.
“With the use of our platform, 85 percent to 90 percent of teachers’ clerical tasks will be lessened,” said Zzish Ltd. of London Philippines country manager Rosemarie Sison said.
She cited as an example the usual checking of test papers by teachers. “It takes time for teachers to get the results but with this platform, even if the students are still answering test papers, there are already results.”
Sison said that with their technology, there is no more to download whether the device used is a tablet or laptop. “You just need internet connection and a browser like firefox or google and will be connected to ZzishHub,” she said.
“What was done by chalks and pencils is digitized,” said Zzish founder and chief operating officer Dr. Charles Wiles.
“I am very much impressed. It is a big help to teachers. It is very good that Balanga City is one of the first sites of the project,” Mayor Francis Garcia said.
He said that for the last two years, they have provided public high schools with 600 sets of computers and another 400 sets to barangay learning centers. They have also constructed two four-storey IT buildings for elementary schools that will be ready in the opening of schools next year.
“Pricing is reasonable. The amount of time consumed by teachers will be lessened. It will enhance knowledge of students,” Garcia said.
The mayor said the project will not financially burden parents and teachers. He said that funds will come from the special education fund and private donors.
Zzish will test pilot eight schools (four from Bataan and four from Balanga City) and then include in the project 200 public schools in the province and 20 from the city.
Sison explained that Zzish will save teachers’ hours of personalizing teaching with the use of classroom quiz apps to instantly understand what help each student needs and then effortlessly assign the best resource or app to help them improve their learning.
It will say goodbye to boring classroom tests with the use of digital assessment tools that can be plugged into ZzishHub, she said.
The project is in coordination with the city and provincial divisions of schools of the Department of Education. (Ric Sapnu)