DAVAO CITY — What does it take for students to be globally-competitive?
New internet facilities now enable the public high school students of Davao del Norte to be on a par with students of the best schools in the country and the rest of the world.
Provided by the Gilas project, in partnership with the Provincial Government of Davao del Norte, the new internet connectivity provides the students access to thousands and even millions of resources around the world to accelerate their learning and improve their academic performance.
With the advent of the internet technology, the students will have no limit to their access of learning. They are now able to explore new frontiers of knowledge and experience global learning in their school.
Provincial administrator Rufo Peligro said the facility affords the kind of interactive technology which makes education much more interesting, flexible, and effective in meeting the needs of the students. He had lamented before on how public schools students are being left behind by their counterparts from private schools, who are better off academically because they have the privilege to get on the internet.
“Through these internet facilities our dream of making the students in the province globally-competitive is now becoming a reality,” he said.
DepEd regional director Dr. Susana Teresa Estigoy hailed how the internet facility can breach the great digital divide among the students in public high schools, where majority come from poor families.
A working knowledge and skills on the computer and the internet, she said, is a must if one is to survive in the increasingly information and technology-driven society.
Gilas director Mario Deriquito said the teachers will now also have an unlimited source of information in developing creative lesson plans to improve their teaching.
“Now, you have the internet as a virtually unlimited source of information, which hopefully will improve your lesson plan, as well as your delivery of the subject matter,” Deriquito told the teachers of Dujali National High School, which was one of the recipients of the project, recently.
Peligro further assured the elementary schools in the province will also be provided with internet connectivity under the computerization program of the province. The Gilas project plans to provide internet access to some 29 high schools in Davao del Norte. It has so far provided internet connectivity to 10 public high schools in the province.
The Gilas project or Gearing Up Internet Literacy Access for Students is an effort of a consortium of private organizations, led by the Ayala Foundation, to uplift the country’s education standards by providing internet access for students in public schools nationwide.
Governor Rodolfo Del Rosario hailed the project as very essential in equalizing and democratizing the learning opportunity of students in public schools, where most of them are being deprived of using modern technologies for academic purposes due to lack of government resources.
The governor has initially allocated about 4.5 million pesos for internet facility of all public schools in the province.
Davao del Norte schools division superintendent Dr. Aurora Cubero thanked the Gilas for helping the division attain its vision for a ‘community of value-laden learners equipped with academic, technological and life skills, and globally-competitive.’ “Our vision is that even our farthest schools, including the tribal school at Sitio Tibi-Tibi in Sto. Nino, Talaingod, will be connected to the internet and become globally-competitive,” she revealed.
Cubero instructed school officials and the teachers to maximize the use of the internet facility so that no high school student in Davao del Norte will be left behind. She warned that school administrators and computer laboratory in-charge who bar students from using the facility for undue reasons will be sanctioned.
Senior student Shella Mae Seguros of La Libertad National High School narrated how their new internet facility has greatly helped her complete her academic requirements with ease. She said the facility is very liberating as their school library lacks resource materials.
Before the advent of their online computer lab, about 75 percent of her schoolmates did not know how to use computers, much more surf the internet. “Now, many of my schoolmates are starting to use the technology and experience surfing the internet to explore endless possibilities for learning,” she said. (PIA)
