>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thank you for posting this. It really drives home the downside of being on the
wrong side of the railroad tracks in the digital divide. I had worked on
hard-wiring some US high schools as a skilled volunteer to help a group called
NetDay. Money that the US Congress mandated be set aside for connecting schools
was available, and hardware was bought, if only schools submitted a request on
official letterhead. I was surprised at how many schools did NOT apply for the
money or equipment, thus wasting an opportunity and imposing extra costs on
their own taxpayers. It may be that some of this excess equipment is still
available in the US, and would only require the costs of transporting it to the
Phillipines. From the little part I played in the effort, it appeared to me
that an enormous amount of electrical equipment was not being utilized. If it's
still not being used, why not apply to have it put to good uses somewhere. At
the very least, the effort would get someone to use thi!
s technology. Joe Dunphy.
>Date: Fri Mar 17 18:24:09 CST 2006
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: [DDN] New Initiative in The Phillipines - Ayala Foundation-
>Gilas.org
>You may have read about the Ayala Foundation in the book we had distributed
>at Tunis from the UN Global Task Force. The foundation has a new initiative,
>called GILAS.
>
> GILAS is an acronym for Gearing-up Internet Literacy and Access for
>Students. It is a project initiated by a group of private companies, and aimed
>at
>providing an Internet lab for each of the 5,443 public high schools in the
>Philippines.
>
>The Philippines spends approximately $64 per student per annum on secondary
>education; quite low compared to approximately $7,500 that the US spends, and
>$5,000 for Singapore. The Philippines ' huge budget deficit and the country's
>myriad of needs make it difficult for the government to increase its education
>spending. The lack of spending manifests itself in the lack of classrooms and
>teachers, poorly trained teachers, underdeveloped curricula and practically
>non-existent libraries.
>
> As a result, the quality of graduates from the public school system has been
>rapidly declining. As it is, only a few students are able to graduate: out of
>every 100 Filipino children who enter first grade, only 3 will finish college
>and 45 will finish secondary school. This under-education has severely
>handicapped the new participants in the national and global workforce.
>
> With the Internet, we have found a powerful and efficient tool to address
>the education gap among the country's youth. Access to the Internet
>democratizes
>information-giving students free access to electronic encyclopedias that aid
>in research, math, science, and languages.
>
>
> Libraries in the public school system are in poor condition and in need of
>basic books. Internet access provides a partial immediate solution to this
>problem. Computer labs in schools provide the tools for computer training,
>which
>prepares high-school student for jobs in the fast-growing business process
>outsourcing industry and other fields requiring basic computer skills.
>Computers
>and Internet access facilitate networking among schools and promote the
>sharing
>of teaching modules, the standardization of material, and teacher training.
>Currently, 6% of the country's public high schools have Internet labs.
>
> In 2000, the Ayala Foundation launched its Youth Tech program to provide
>Internet connectivity packages to schools that had received computers from a
>Japanese government grant. In 2001, a group of 28 private corporations and
>foundations called ConnectEd.ph was organized by the Makati Business Club to
>join
>the Ayala Foundation's effort. The group managed to wire 323 public high
>schools
>by end-2004. The success of these projects and the daunting task of reaching
>out to all of the country's public high schools prompted groups in the private
>sector to band together and work towards a common goal. In GILAS is the hope
>of making a tangible contribution to the youth of the Philippines.
>
>http://www.gilas.org/index.htm
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