TO address the declining quality of education in the country, a lawmaker has filed a measure pushing for the use of touchscreen computer blackboard in all public schools.
House Bill 53, authored by Liberal Party Rep. Alfredo Benitez of Negros Occidental, seeks to institutionalize the implementation of a cyber education program for primary, secondary and tertiary education in the country.
The bill also seeks to achieve higher standards of education and bring about significant improvements in the performance of students through the utilization of information and communication technology (ICT); improve the quality of classroom lessons and the fundamental improvement of public education through the use of ICT; address the inequality in education by bringing the educational system even to the remotest barangay and to many underserved children, especially those who come from lower-income families and prepare students to become ICT literate and provide them unlimited opportunities for learning.
The bill, now pending at the committees level, proposes that there shall be at least one cyber-education classroom in every school.
The measure also mandates the creation of a Cyber Education Development and Management Corp. (CyberEd Corp.) under the Department of Education.
Under the bill the CyberEd Corp., which will be organized within 60 days from the effectivity of the act, shall be the primary policy-making, planning and coordinating entity of the government that will be tasked to develop, coordinate and ensure the implementation of government programs and action plans relating to the cyber education program.
In his province, Benitez said that they have launched the implementation of similar ICT program in at least 70 schools through the use of touchscreen computer blackboard or the Alternative Learning Board (AL-B).
“Since the implementation of AL-B, we notice that the passing rate of our students in the National Achievement Test has been increased significantly from 69 in 2011 to 74 percent in 2012,” he said.
Benitez said in the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum for 2010 to 2011, the Philippines ranked 99th out of the 138 economies in the area of primary education, 69th in educational system, 112th in science and math and 76th on Internet access.
“The Philippines ranked poorly in all categories, even falling behind its neighboring Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam,” he said.
“The importance of technology in providing good quality education cannot be taken for granted. For one, the Philippines has a reputation for being a world-class ICT hub in Asia, a status that we have to uphold,” he said.