City education officials defend junking of Internet link program

City education officials yesterday defended the city government's decision to set aside at this time the proposal of a national non-government organization to provide Internet connection to all public high schools in the city.

City education consultant Joy Young clarified that the city government is not depriving students of access to the Internet but priorities have to be set. As far as the Internet connection is concerned, that's not a main priority, he said.

The Gearing-Up Internet Literacy and Access for Students (Gilas) group was disappointed over the city's alleged "lack of interest" on its program even if the city now among those lagging behind in Internet linkage.

The group earlier expected Cebu City to allocate funds for the program in addition to those from supporting firms such as the Ayala Group, PLDT, Globe, Smart and IBM.

But Young said the city should focus more on basic education due to low rate of public high school students in the national examinations two years ago, prompting Mayor Tomas Osmeña to cancel students' participation in the Sinulog sa Barangay and focus instead on their studies.

Young said the city's priority in the next three years is to enhance students' knowledge on English, Science, and Mathematics subjects. "They better wake up because they cannot promote information technology if you don't have the basic foundation," he said.

The city's budget for education would also go primarily to construction of more classrooms and the training of teachers. This year alone, the city already spent P4 million for summer training of teachers and P140 million for classrooms' construction, said Young.

Young added that the city still has to build 28 classrooms each for Bulacao and Inayawan National High Schools so Internet connection could not be among the city's priorities now because there are schools that do not even have secretaries and clerks.

City schools superintendent Leonilo Oliva, for his part, said Internet project is still not realistic at this time because the city's schools are in dire need of more buildings and sites for additional classrooms to meet the anticipated backlog in the coming years.

Oliva said there are several schools that are expected to encounter classroom shortage due to increase in their enrollment. These schools are Pardo, Guadalupe, Talamban, Lahug and Inayawan elementary schools, Gothong High School, Ramon Duterte National High School, and Talamban High School.

"What we are thinking here are the needs of the students. Internet may be one of them but we still need to focus on the basic problems," said Oliva.

Oliva said that at present only half of the 26 secondary schools in the city are connected to the net but students will have to pay P 50 a month to the school to be able to use the facility. He said this actually poses an added burden to students. -Joeberth M. Ocao and Jasmin R. Uy