ICT IN BASIC EDUCATION

JESLI A. LAPUS
Secretary
Department of Education

Our Goal

It is our dream that the best of the Filipino learner shall emerge at the forefront of
economic development empowered by an ICT-supported system of quality basic
education for all.

Towards this vision, basic education is committed to the appropriate, effective,

and sustainable use of ICTs to broaden access to and improve the quality and
efficiency of basic education service delivery. It shall evolve and nurture an
information and communications technology framework designed to enhance,
broaden, strengthen and transform learning. This is aimed at developing the
Filipino learner into a person who is excellence-driven, global in perspective,
innovative, ingenious and creative, with a deep sense of community and concern
for harmony and the common good.

The quality of and access to basic education substantially remains as the

overriding goal of educational development. Thus, all educational interventions
shall be geared towards ensuring the empowerment of learners with life-long
skills through the use of appropriate technologies. Educational development
therefore is the purpose of our information and communications technology
program.

Policy Framework

This program to integrate ICTs in basic education is in line with several national
policies underpinning basic education in the Philippines.

We begin with our MTPDP— the Medium Term Philippines Development Plan —
which envisions ICT as a development tool that provides for the wider use of
computers to support the teaching-learning process, the promotion of e-learning
and information literacy, and the establishment of e-learning competency
centers.

The Basic Education Curriculum likewise recognizes the need to harness ICTs in
the acquisition of life skills, a reflective understanding and internalization of
principles and values, and the development of the person’s multiple intelligences.
It encourages the use of ICTs in all learning areas as a means for promoting
greater interactivity, widening access to knowledge and for developing skills in
accessing, processing and applying information, and in solving mathematical
problems and conducting experiments.

And finally, strategic planning for ICT use in basic education is framed by our
Schools First Initiative and our National Action Plan to Achieve Education for All
by the Year 2015. Both policies recognize the extreme factors that impinge on

1
the basic education system. It offers a clearly articulated framework and
strategies for mitigating the effects of these factors and for advancing basic
education through the marriage of technology and communications.

These, therefore, have paved the way for the development of all our strategic
efforts towards the creation of a national ICT master plan, leading to where we
are right now.

Status of ICT in Basic Education

As many of you know, the use of ICTs is considerably more prevalent in the
formal education setting. DepEd estimates that 69% of public secondary schools
already have at least one computer, and we are hoping to raise this figure to 75%
by the end of 2006.

For the past seven years, DepEd has conducted a massive computerization
program for secondary schools under the DepEd Computerization Program. This
has been supplemented over the years by ICT-related initiatives of other national
government agencies, local government units, non-government organizations,
private firms, foreign governments, and international aid donor agencies. These
initiatives include not only infrastructure but also staff development program for
teachers on basic ICT literacy and pedagogy-technology integration. Among
these are the educational television-based programs of the Knowledge Channel
Foundation and ABS-CBN Foundation, and the computer-based teaching and
learning programs of FIT-ED (the Foundation for IT Education and
Development), Intel’s Teach to the Future and Microsoft’s Partners in Learning
Program.

Of course, one of our priorities remains to be to provide ICT facilities on a

nationwide scale.

While more secondary schools now have computers, student-to-computer and

teacher-to-computer ratios remain extremely poor. At the elementary level,
computer penetration is negligible. Latest available DepEd estimates place
computer penetration at one computer for every 25,000 elementary pupils and
one for every 728 elementary school teachers. Our high school penetration is at
one computer for every 111 secondary school students, and one for every three
secondary school teachers.

Also, there is the limited number and variety of subject-specific educational

software available in schools. Software in schools consists mostly of office
software or productivity tools and the educational software that are available tend
to be limited to those for English, Science and Mathematics. There are, but, a
few educational software for music and arts classes, and particularly for subject
areas that require local content in the local language such as Social Studies and
Filipino.

At the same time, there is an absence of specific curricular standards and

guidelines for integrating computers into the subject areas. Although the current

2
curriculum advocates the innovative use of ICTs to make learning more
interactive, interdisciplinary, collaborative and authentic, there is as yet no
nationally prescribed technology-enhanced curriculum.

In so far as our teachers are concerned, despite the fact that they are critical to
the success of technology integration in the classroom, training opportunities in
ICT-enhanced teaching are generally limited. In the FITED survey, 58% of our
schools reported that less than half of their teaching staff have undergone
computer-related training, while 12% reported that their teachers have had no
computer-related training at all. Sadly, for those that have undergone ICT
training, the nature of the training and its effectiveness is unclear.

Implementation Strategies

As we look ahead, we now strive to achieve our goals based on the following
strategies:

1. Using ICTs to broaden access to basic education;

2. Using ICTs to improve the quality of learning;
3. Using ICTs to enhance the quality of teaching; and
4. Using ICTs to improve educational planning and management.

Operational Targets

Based on these strategies, we hope to achieve our goals for 2006-2010 through
the following operational targets:

1. That all public secondary schools shall have multimedia laboratories, 20%
or 7,500 of our 37,492 public elementary schools shall have a computer
laboratory equipped with basic multimedia equipment and 50% of
Community Learning Centers will have computer laboratories;

2. That all public schools with computer laboratories shall be connected to

the digital highway;

3. That 50% of teachers in English, Science and Mathematics from recipient

schools shall have been trained on basic computer literacy skills,
laboratory management and pedagogy-technology integration. Also that
all school heads from these schools shall have been trained in strategic
planning and management of ICT-enhanced environments; and

4. That all recipient schools shall be provided with appropriate software and
instructional resources.

ICT Programs

Central to the effective and efficient implementation of the ICT Master Plan is the
undertaking of specific programs. These programs are as follows:

3
 1. The FACILITIES ACQUISITION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, which
includes not only hardware and software acquisition, but also connectivity
to the information superhighway (to ensure the quality and quantity of ICT
resources are standardized to guarantee compatibility and inter-operability
between the various systems to be installed);

2. The CURRICULUM AND MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM,

which improves the quality of education through the fine-tuning of the
Basic Education Curriculum through the use of ICT whenever appropriate
and available;

3. The STAFF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, which focuses on equipping

teachers, school heads and support staff with appropriate skills and
behavior to support the changes brought about by ICT; and

4. The GOVERNANCE AND ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM, which aims to

improve educational management and strengthen policy development and
program implementation, all under the framework of transparency,
improved governance, evidence-based advocacy and shared
accountability.

As we look at ICT as an important tool in improving Basic Education— as we

look at our efforts to provide these technologies to Philippine schools in the next
five years— we must take into account several issues that affect the
implementation of our ICT in Basic Education efforts. These include the following:

1. We need to focus on maximizing the use of our ICT resources;

2. We need to focus on addressing such issues as obsolescence of our

current ICT resources, maintenance of our current ICT resources, and
new demands based on the increase in student population;

3. We need to focus on advocating the need to use appropriate

technologies—to include the creation of a Teachers’ Channel for television
and the promotion of the English by Radio series created by the BBC; and

4. We need to focus on coordinating all the various ICT in Basic Education

efforts from the national and local governments, NGOs, the ICT sector and
the community.

Implementation Strategies

All these efforts, as part of our Master Plan for ICT in Basic Education, require us
to employ the following strategies to ensure the effective and efficient
implementation of such a plan:

1. Strengthen policy and leadership on ICT concerns;

4
2. Undertake planning for ICT in Basic Education at the regional, division,
and school levels, in line with national goals, strategies, programs, and
projects;

3. Perform research-based curriculum and competency standards setting,

model-building and piloting, systematic monitoring and evaluation, and the
up-scaling of good practice models;

4. Develop an ICT advocacy and promotions program, and encourage the

same at local levels;

5. Encourage community participation in program and project development

and implementation;

6. Foster the building of a community of teachers, instructional managers,

students, parents, education administrators, policy makers, researchers,
technology experts, and other education sector stakeholders as a
mechanism for providing instructional, technical, administrative, and other
necessary support for ICT-based innovation, and encourage a sense of
ownership among all stakeholders; and

7. Optimize the use of available resources and intensify resource

mobilization, at the national and local levels, to defray the total cost of
ownership of ICT-supported initiatives.

Towards this end—

a. We intend to rationalize budget spending for ICT in Basic Education in

accordance with our National Strategic Plan;

b. We intend to create a National ICT for Basic Education Fund to be

used for, among others, ICT facilities improvement, curriculum-based
materials development, training of trainers, research and development,
and monitoring and evaluation, and encourage the same at local
levels;

c. We intend to harmonize the ICT-related initiatives of and strengthen

cooperation on ICT-related matters among the different government
agencies, in particular between DepED and the Commission on
Information and Communications Technology, Commission on Higher
Education, Department of Science and Technology, and the
Department of Trade and Industry;

d. We intend to encourage greater and more efficient local government

investment— through the Special Education Fund and other local
funding instruments— in ICT-based initiatives to meet locally-defined
strategic goals for ICT in Basic Education; and

e. Finally, we intend to exploit various forms of partnerships— with the

5
 private sector, non-government organizations, academic and training
institutions, local communities and other stakeholders— so we can
develop alternative financing models, including but not limited to
setting educational rates on ICT-based goods and services, school-
university twinning, harnessing existing community assets, fund raising
through PTCAs, alumni associations and other community groups, and
commercialization of ICT facilities and services.

Support for Basic Education

In the end, this boils down to how much resources we can allocate for ICT in
Basic Education.

The bulk of the investment requirements for the implementation of the Master
Plan for ICT in Basic Education shall come from the annual budgetary
appropriations of the National Government. However, an intensified resource
mobilization scheme involving all stakeholders shall be pursued to defray the
total cost of ownership of ICT-supported initiatives. LGU resources shall be
increasingly tapped. Likewise, contributions from government earnings of
government-owned and controlled corporations, proceeds from donations and
contributions from the private sector, support from PTCAs and NGOs and foreign
development assistance shall become major sources of funding for the
implementation of our Master Plan.

As we call on public support for basic education— through various DepEd

programs including our Brigada Eskwela, Schools First Initiative, and of course,
our Adopt-A-School Program— we enjoin the public to participate in the task of
providing more resources for ICT in Basic Education.

This crisis will not go away without public support for basic education. Our
numbers show that:

• From a high of about 14% in 2000, the budget for the Department of
Education last year of P 112 B represents a decline in share of the
national budget to 11%.

• While a supplemental budget of 9.65 billion pesos is being considered for

DepEd in line with the 2006 reenacted budget of 112 billion pesos, this is
still not enough to address the true requirements of our education system.

Add to this our need for more classrooms, teachers, and textbooks we know that
despite government’s sincerity to put education on top of its agenda, our current
resources will not be enough.

This, of course, translates to poor performance among our students—

• In the recent FLEMMS— the Functional Literacy, Education and Mass

Media Survey— conducted in 2003, we found out that over 15% of our

6
 population is not functionally literate. This means that over 11 million
Filipinos do not have the literacy skills required to enable them to provide
worthwhile livelihood for themselves and their families—now and in the
future.

• In the recent TIMSS— the Trends in International Mathematics and

Science Study— conducted in 2004, we placed 41 in Math and 42 in
Science a field of 45 countries. This means our country is one of the
poorest performers in both Math and Science.

• In the recent NAT— the National Achievement Test— conducted earlier

this year, we found out that majority of our students failed to achieve the
75% mark in all subjects tested. This means that most of them do not
have the required competencies in English, Math, Science, Social Studies
and Filipino.

This is why we are asking for your support— through programs such as Adopt-A-
School, which— under Republic Act 8525— provides a means for the private
sector to participate in basic education, with tax incentives of up to 150 percent.

Through Adopt-A-School, we hope we can enjoin the private sector to the cause
of basic education. This, therefore, is one of the priorities of the Department of
Education under my watch. Through your efforts—and the efforts of others like
you— we can beat this crisis, provide our children with the quality education they
need to become truly productive— and competitive— in the coming years.

I thank you all for your continued support for Basic Education and I look forward
to working closely with each one of you in our quest for quality education for all
Filipinos.

* For softcopy requests of this speech, please contact the Communications Unit, Office of the
Secretary (OSEC) at (02) 631-6033 or email depedcommunications@gmail.com.