Private schools to get fast internet connection

MANILA, Philippines — The Federation of Associations of Private Schools Administrators (FAPSA) has signed an agreement with local tech firm Perl Tech Consulting International (PTCI) to provide fast internet connection in its member schools.

FAPSA president Eleazardo Kasilag said the signing was held early this month at the St. Clare College in Caloocan.

The PTCI, a member of the Mindanao Islamic Telephone (Mislatel) consortium, will provide the needed network for the private schools, according to Kasilag.

“The poor connection and inefficient service of wifi connections in schools hamper the growth of learning in the country, and while so many private schools wish to go full throttle with the use of tablets, they are hindered by expensive yet unreliable bandwidth,” he said.

Kasilag cited the importance of imparting lessons through gadgets, such as tablets and laptops.

“These are not only for social media (use) but moreso for education,” he stressed.

Kasilag said tablet education should not be criticized nor blamed for the ills among gadget fanatics.

“FAPSA needs to address this embarrassing reality because technology’s inappropriate use has become the yardstick instead of tablet being the beneficial tool for learning,” the FAPSA head said.

Filipinos are the world’s heaviest internet users, according to the recently released Digital 2019 report by social media firms Hootsuite and We Are Social.

The 200-page report showed that internet users in the Philippines dethroned Thailand as the country that spends the most time online.

The study, which was conducted in 2018, showed that internet users in the Philippines increased their average time online to 10 hours and two minutes from its previous record of nine hours and 29 minutes last year.