Budget to deploy ICT infra in public schools still hazy

While the Philippines is trying to sustain its human resource niche in attracting employment provider investors, the Department of Education (DepEd) has no clear target how much the country's entire educational system would need, in order to properly introduce ICT in basic education.

Although, there is a clear target to implement policy framework to integrate ICT in basic education in line with several national policies underpinning basic education in the Philippines, DepEd secretary Jesli A. Lapus declined to provide a concrete budget for deployment of ICT related infrastructure including training for teachers.

During the opening of the two-day 2nd National ICTs in Basic Education Congress yesterday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, told the over 1,000 educators in the country that, the Philippines need to have more ICT competent teachers in order to accelerate growth in BPO investments, and provide competitive and more qualified graduates.

"ICT is the wave of the future, it is the employment provider of the country," Arroyo said in her brief keynote speech.

On the other hand, Lapus said DepEd still has to identify the estimate budget to properly introduce ICT foundation in the public schools across the country, because it is quite a huge expenditure.

"We can not be idealistic, but we have to be realistic," Lapus said when asked how much the concrete budget in order to implement the goal to introduce ICT in basic education.

He said there are 42,000 schools in the Philippines. At least each class per school needs one Personal Computer (PCs) that will be connected to the worldwide web. This means, multi-billion pesos investments.

Lapus mentioned that the Commission on Information Communication Technology (CICT) has a budget of P300 million to automate, or introduce computerization to public schools, plus a few dollars from DepEd.

Significantly, he said the government will have to exploit various forms of partnerships, with the private sector, non-government organizations, academic and training institutions, local communities and other stakeholders, so the Philippines can develop alternative financing models, including but not limited to setting educational rates on ICT-based goods and services, school-university twinning, harnessing existing community groups, and commercialization of ICT facilities and services.

He said the build of the investment requirements for the implementation of the Master Plan for ICT in Basic Education shall come from the annual budgetary appropriations of the National Government.

However, he said an intensified resource mobilization scheme involving all stakeholders shall be pursued to defray the total cost of ownership of ICT-supported initiatives.

"LGU resources shall be increasingly tapped," he said referring to the monetary contribution that will be required from the LGU in the development of ICT for Basic Education program.

Other source of funds for the building an IT-savvy next generation Filipinos, aside from the foreign grants, and large business institutions, include; contributions from government-owned and controlled corporations, he said.

The 2nd National ICTs in Basic Education Congress is organized by DepEd and the Foundation for Information Technology (FIT-ED) and the CICT.

The congress gathered together over 1,000 participants from all over the country composed mostly of school principals or administrators, division and regional officials of the DepEd, administrators from private schools, state universities and colleges as well as representative from the private sector and non-profit organizations working the field of ICTs in basic education.