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By Jonathan M. Hicap Reporter
It is touted as one of the most
ambitious and costliest education projects in recent years which
aims to bridge the digital divide among schools and uplift the
quality of the Philippines basic education.
Imagine this: Students in
far-flung and poverty-stricken areas in the country like Northern
Samar will be taught through a live broadcast and satellite-linked
TV in their classroom by an expert teacher conducting in real-time
lessons in a studio at the government-owned TV station NBN in Quezon
City or at the central office of the Department of Education in
Pasig City.
The students’ classroom teacher
simply logs on to the Internet via a computer and downloads lesson
guides and other materials she needs for the day.
Simply put, DepEd’s
P26.48-billion Cyber Education Project is seen as a major solution
to the myriad education problems. It is claimed to totally enhance
the traditional concept of classroom teaching because teachers and
pupils can interactively view and respond to teachers in the live
feeds and computer-enhanced delivery of lessons.
This system is supposed to raise
the public education system which has been in a deep rut these last
20 years, suffering from a host of problems including poor quality
of students and teachers, shortage of fundamental needs like
classrooms, textbooks, instructional and learning materials, and
even chairs and tables.
Director Lorenzo Mateo, who
manages the Cyber Education Project, has a major answer to the
long-time crisis in education.
Satellite based education
While it is not commonplace, the
concept of satellite-based education is now being used in other
countries including India and China, two of the world’s most
populous countries.
The Philippines’ Cyber
Education Project is designed to cover all public schools in the
country.
“And Cyber Ed is the technology
that will enable us to deliver high quality education to all
learners throughout the country. It is, without a doubt, the best
response to the challenges we face in the basic education sector,”
declared Education Secretary Jesli Lapus.
Even President Arroyo believes
the project can uplift the quality of education in the country.
“The cyber education project of
DepEd will dramatically improve the delivery of quality basic
education through ICT to thousands of public schools in remote
barangays,” said President Arroyo during the Corporate Social
Responsibility Expo 2007 on July 16.
According to DepEd, the CEP will
use satellite technology to deliver content to 37,794 or 90 percent
of all public elementary and high schools in the country. This will
link schools to a nationwide network that will provide 12 video
channels, wireless wide area networking, local area networking and
wireless Internet connection.
Each school will receive live
broadcasts of lectures and presentations from teachers and
coursewares and other resource materials.
Acting Education Assistant
Secretary Jesus Lorenzo Mateo, director of DepEd’s Education
Development Projects Implementing Task Force (Edpitaf), told The
Manila Times that the project would use a dedicated network in
delivering content.
A national server or hub will
serve as central nerve of the project.
Mateo said that in a typical
setup, each school would have a multimedia classroom consisting of a
TV set, personal computers, server, printer and satellite receiver.
Each TV in a Cyber Ed classroom
will have 12 channels with one channel for each grade level. At the
initial phase of the program, each school will be provided with four
TV sets. The live broadcast will run for about 15 to 20 minutes for
every subject area.
Mateo said the DepEd is planning
to get the “best” teachers including Metrobank awardees to act
as speakers or trainers for the live broadcast. A minimum of 10
expert teachers will be deployed for every grade level.
“Students will have [acquire]
their [the expert teachers’] expertise,” he said.
FVR-time beginnings
Satellite-based education in the
Philippines was conceptualized during the time of President Fidel V.
Ramos.
“We thought about it during
[President] Ramos’ time,” said Mateo, who was already working
for DepEd then. The idea was to use the country’s Agila satellite
system, which was launched into orbit in 1997, as the tool. It
didn’t push through.
PRC money and expertise
The DepEd says the Cyber Ed
Project is part of the ICT-based education agenda that is included
in the economic cooperation agreement signed by the Philippines and
China in June 2006. The project was to have the assistance of
Tsinghua University, China’s premier technology university and one
of the world’s pioneers in distance education.
Besides China’s huge
E-Education Project, Tsinghua also manages the China Education and
Research Network (CER-NET), which serves some 320 million
beneficiaries.
Last April, the National Economic
and Development Authority (NEDA) board approved the Cyber Ed Project
as part of government’s agenda to provide access to quality
education especially to people in poor areas.
The NEDA sees the project as a
way to address the lack of basic education resources such as
“competent teachers, academic classrooms and instructional
materials.”
According to the NEDA, of the
total cost of P26.48 billion, 86 percent or P22.77 billion of which
will be financed through a loan from China. The remaining 14 percent
or P3.71 billion will be funded by the Philippine government.
5-year plan
“The CEP will be implemented
within five years. Within this period, a total of 256,618 schools
outside the 1st and 2nd class cities, 11,176 schools under the
clustering scheme, 665 Alternative Learning System (ALS) learning
centers (for out-of-school youths and adults) and 4,282 elementary
and high schools in 1st and 2nd class cities will be covered and the
project will be operational in those places,” the NEDA said in a
statement issued last April.
Mateo said for the Cyber Ed
Project, the Agila 2 satellite would be used. The DepEd will spend
P5.8 billion for the first phase of the project, which will be
operational next year. He said in the first year, the CEP would
target 3,000 to 4,000 public schools in remote areas and islands.
“The real challenge in basic
education lies in narrowing the disparity between those who perform
well and those who do not,” Lapus said. “Those in the far-flung
areas will benefit from this technology since they will be given
access to our best teachers [located in the NCR and in other key
cities] and our best resource materials.”
Besides India and China, other
countries that use satellite-based distance learning programs are
the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, El Salvador, Panama,
Guatemala, Honduras, Thailand and Indonesia.
China’s E-Education project
DepEd’s Cyber Ed Project is
based on China’s E-Education Project which services some 500,000
schools and universities in the People’s Republic.
Mateo said of the total budget
for the Cyber Ed Project, 69 percent or about P18.27 billion will be
spent on appliance and equipment to be used. The rest of the funds
will be for operating expenses including course-ware training.
Benefits
The idea of the Cyber Ed Project
came up as an answer to the problems of lack of learning and
instructional materials for students, costly teacher training. It
thought of also as a solution to the late transmission to remote
areas of new policies and memorandums discussing new regulations
from the DepEd central office to the different regional offices and
the schools themselves.
Mateo said public schools suffer
from lack of relevant instructional and learning materials and rely
heavily on textbooks.
Also, the work of training close
to 500,000 public school teachers to become experts in a single
subject takes years and is costly, with DepEd allotting an average
of P5,000 for every teacher.
Objectives
Mateo said the objectives of the
CEP are wide.
For students, the project aims to
deliver “quality education.” He said it also aims for the
“improvement of teachers’ capability” and enhancement of
administration and governance in schools.
To be continued
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