With more support, internet connection for all public schools moves ahead

It’s 1,132 down and 4,657 more to go.

With the continuing support of the BPI Foundation, Gilas (Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students) is moving towards its goal of providing internet connectivity to the country’s 5,789 public schools. The latest supporter of Gilas is the Doña Isabel Garcia Trust Fund, which recently gave an endowment of P1 million. Quezon province was the main beneficiary of the donation, with 10 of its schools recently connected to the net.

Gilas is aiming for full internet connectivity for all public schools by 2010.

The non-government organization has been receiving praise from various sectors for its role in preparing Filipino youth for the challenges ahead. There is still an acknowledged "technology gap" that separates Filipino students from their counterparts in the West and such technologically advanced Asian countries as Japan and Singapore.

It is no longer tomorrow’s workplace but already today’s typical employment environment that are highly dependent on high technology. The endowment to Quezon’s public schools could not have come at a better time. The province thrives mostly from its coconut and fishing industries. Access to the internet is not common to most of Quezon, since even the majority of its towns do not have internet cafes. The province, named after the country’s Commonwealth and wartime president, has over 150 public high schools with a total student population of 108,717 as of the school year just passed.

One typical message of thanks – delivered via email, of course – came from the Dagatan National High School. "After having fulfilled our dreams to have internet connection in our school through your magnanimous benevolence, we couldn’t grasp the best words for ‘thank you,’" said the school’s message to Gilas.

Gilas is a campaign directed by a multi-sectoral consortium that was started in January of 2005.