DepEd: Public-private partnerships key to ICT education

Engaging the private sector in bringing technology tools to public schools in the country is a key ingredient in the Department of Education's (DepEd) push for information and communications technology (ICT) in education in the country, a ranking official said on Wednesday. Speaking to the press at the sidelines of the 2nd Asia Pacific Ministerial Forum on ICT Education, DepEd Sec. Armin Luistro said that the government alone cannot address current education challenges, such as the need to impart 21st-century skills to students. Luistro said that, with the help of the private sector, they were able to make great strides in bringing ICT to schools. "One of our major achievements this year is that we were able to connect all 7,000 public high schools in the country, except for those without power and mobile connectivity," Luistro said. "[In these endeavors], you need innovation and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to get the projects moving," he added. Luistro shared that GILAS (Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students) —a collaboration among several Philippine corporations aiming to connect public schools in the country to the Internet— provided funding for connecting about half of all the public high schools to the Internet. "Many of the initiatives applying ICT in education in the Philippines were made possible through this productive partnership between the private companies and the public school system," Luistro said during his keynote speech at the forum. Bridging gaps The DepEd chief was aware, however, that there are more pressing problems in the education system that needs to be addressed by the government, such as the lack of classrooms and textbooks in schools. "Indeed, there are no quick and easy answers to the concerns that we face. These concerns, however, should not be addressed by piecemeal solutions, but through a comprehensive package of interventions," he stressed. Despite the progress they have achieved with their ICT initiatives, Luistro said their efforts still fall short of equipping students with 21st-century skills. "[But] our most viable option [right now] is to seize the moment and institute the necessary reforms to equip our learners with the necessary competencies for the future," he said. For the time being, and until such time that ICT implementation in the education system has gone full swing, Luistro said the most useful application of technology in education is the linkage of students and teachers to their peers in other localities, as well as to hard-to-find resources. He cited the Learning Resources Management and Development System co-developed by the agency and the Australian Government Overseas Aid Program (AusAID), which sought to make learning resources available to teachers. "We are in the process of expanding access to this portal as wel as populating it with more resources developed both internally and outside the Department," he said. Assessing progress But how effective are these projects, really? Dr. Gwang-Jo Kim, director of the UNESCO office in Bangkok and co-chairman of the two-day Manila forum, stressed the need for a standard assessment system in evaluating ICT in education. "We found that, except for a few cases, evaluation endeavors [in some countries] are not fully supported by budgets, and do not focus on outcome," Kim told the audience at the forum, composed mainly of education ministers in the region. Kim said that even if countries do focus on outcome in their evaluation of projects, "student learning is not the primary evaluation objective." He cited a certain study in which students where given computing devices to aid in education, where the desired objective was not met. "What's troublesome, [the study said], is that when it comes to the use of technology in schools, it does not make any difference in students' math scores," he said. "But when students use technology at home, there's an improvement in the score." Kim stressed that there is a need to measure or evaluate if ICT-supported learning is really happening through these projects. "Are students using ICT for their learning or something else? We automatically assume that when we give devices, they will use it for learning. Is that the case?" he pointed out. — TJD, GMA News