e-Learning center to benefit Apalit students, community

MANILA, Philippines - On his birthday this year, Manuel V. Pangilinan went back to his father’s hometown in Apalit, Pampanga to fulfill the promise to build a new classroom in an elementary school. What was erected was a state-of-the-art computer center named the MVP Community Center for e-Learning.

Pangilinan, chairman of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) and Smart Communications recently inaugurated the e-learning center in San Vicente Central School.

A classroom seemed not enough to live up to the visionary that Pangilinan is, thought the team behind this project – the PLDT-Smart Foundation (PSF) and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), also chaired by Pangilinan.

Standing out amidst the old American-style school buildings characteristic of public schools, the air-conditioned e-Learning center can accommodate two classes simultaneously. 

“This enables San Vicente Central School to offer computer classes to pupils as early as Grade 3,” says Principal Lolita Canda. Before, only Grades 5 and 6 students were given computer subjects, with six computers shared among classes.

The center is equipped with whiteboards, 40 desks, chairs, a workstation on one side of the room, and 36 flat screen computers on the other half. It enjoys a one-year free Internet subscription from PLDT.

PSF took care of costs of the building construction, while PBSP provided the equipment, peripherals, and furnishing, and monitored the construction of the building. Smart Communications will train teachers on integrating information and communications technology (ICT) in their teaching methods.

Being a community center, the facility will also extend its services to the wider Apalit community through trainings for out-of-school youth, and disaster prevention monitoring, among others.