P260-M allotted for public school computers

The government has allocated P260 million to help public high schools gain greater access to personal computers and Internet connectivity, a lawmaker said over the weekend.

Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, former chairman of the National Telecommunications Commission, said the funding would benefit 4,830 public secondary schools all over the country.

"The fresh funding is embodied in the P1.126-trillion national budget for 2007 already passed by the House of Representatives," Santiago, an advocate of information technology (IT) development, said in a statement.

He said the new money is on top of the P150 million allotted for public school computers in the P46.4-billion supplemental budget for 2006.

Santiago said the "improved PC and Web access in schools would build up the computer literacy of the country’s future human resources.’’

The Department of Education (DepEd) has been rolling out PC laboratories in public high schools under the Computer-Linkage Program (CLP), which also provides computer literacy training to teachers.

The DepEd has already distributed over 30,000 PC packages to 75 percent of public high schools nationwide under the private sector-aided Personal Computers for Public Schools (PCPS) Project.

Santiago underscored the need to accelerate the rollout of computer laboratories in all public high schools so that the DepEd could proceed to put up similar facilities in 37,900 elementary schools.

"At present, public elementary schools have virtually no PC access to speak of," Santiago said, adding the PC-to-student ratio in grade schools is 1:25,000 or one PC for every 25,000 students.

He said greater PC access in schools would give substance to the Electronic Commerce Law, also known as Republic Act 8792, which recognizes the need to sustain an IT-friendly environment and mandates government to develop human capital for the information age.

Meanwhile, the government has also allocated P2.4 billion as "tuition subsidy’’ to underprivileged high school students enrolled in private schools, according to House Deputy Majority Leader Eduardo Gullas.

The program, which is under the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE), will benefit some 610,000 poor but deserving students across the country. The funding has been included in the national budget for 2007.

Gullas, whose family owns one of the oldest and biggest schools in Cebu City, said GASTPE helps "needy secondary students left out by the public school system’s limited facilities and driven to enroll in private institutions.’’ — Delon Porcalla