| The Philippines’ Cyber Education Project: Pros and Cons |
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| Thursday, 15 November 2007 | |||
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Recently, the Philippine’s Department of Education (DepEd) announced its new promising proposal called
the CYBER EDUCATION PROJECT (CEP) which aimed at “providing an efficient and cost-effective solution to the need to deliver educational services to public elementary and secondary schools throughout the whole archipelago.”
Cyber Education is defined as a brand new form of education in which instructional and management activities are carried out mainly based on E-Learning technologies. It includes concepts like “online education”, “E-Learning”, “virtual education”, “digital education”, “multi-media learning” and among others. The Philippines’ Cyber Education Project is accurately described as a Satellite-based Distance Learning Program. It was learned that the Satellite-based education in the Philippines was conceptualized during the time of President Fidel V. Ramos. The idea was to use the country’s Agila satellite system, which was launched into orbit in 1997, as the tool. However, it didn’t push through. Now, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s government is trying hard in realizing this development amidst the strong and challenging political and economic concerns. The Satellite-based Distance Learning Program links the schools to a nationwide network that provides 12 video channels, wireless wide area networking, local area networking and wireless Internet connectivity. Through the Cyber Ed Project, the Department of Education (DepEd) expects substantial improvement in student performance. At the same time, its network will provide cost-effective teacher training to close to half a million public school teachers, enabling them to upgrade their capabilities using virtual teacher training modules. DepEd’s P26.48-billion Cyber Education Project is seen as a majorsolution to the myriad education problems. It is claimed to totally enhance the traditional concept of classroom teaching because teachers and pupils can interactively view and respond to teachers in the live feeds and computer-enhanced delivery of lessons. According to the NEDA, of the total cost of P26.48 billion, 86 percent or P22.77 billion of which will be financed through a loan from China and the remaining 14 percent or P3.71 billion will be funded by the Philippine government. DepEd explained that under this project, a total of 37,794 schools or 90% of all public schools nationwide will be connected in the next three years. These schools will receive live broadcasts featuring lectures and presentations from master teachers as well as course wares on demand and other valuable resource materials. Furthermore, the Cyber Ed Project is based on China's E-Education Project which covers some 500,000 schools and universities. DepEd’s official website revealed that the Cyber Ed Project is in accordance with the ICT-based education agenda included in the economic cooperation agreement signed by the Philippines and China in June 2006 and it is undertaken with assistance from Tsinghua University, China's premier technology university. On the other hand, The Philippine Inquirer wrote that Thailand's Distance Learning Foundation is positioned as the Cyber Education model for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It started in 1995 when the Distance Learning Foundation and the King's Wang Klaikangwon School started a project to broadcast live class lectures for 15 channels. There is one for grades 1 to 12 and three other channels for vocational, university classes and teacher training. The broadcasts are transmitted via satellite. It was originally planned to address the lack of teachers in the kingdom and at the same time to ensure that students are taught in a uniform way. In its present form, the program also reaches overseas Thais to keep them rooted in their culture. The system in Thailand uses the Direct to Home or DTH technology, which is also available in the Philippines. Thailand has so far spent 1 billion baht (about US$31 million) for the program. The Philippine Inquirer further revealed that Thailand’s Distance Learning Foundation is keen on donating a satellite receiver set to the Philippines' DepEd which hopes to start a bilateral cooperation on cyber education. The satellite receiver set would enable the DepEd to capture the same live lectures broadcast to Thai schools for free under the "One Class, One Channel' project. Moreover, the Philippine Star reported that the Thai government invited officials of the DepEd to observe Thailand's satellite TV project for schools. An initial observation from DepEd officials who witnessed the implementation of the project in Thailand said that Philippine schools could implement the program for 20-40 minutes only per day. Nevertheless, the Thai government is still willing to help the Philippines implement the program. DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus said that the Cyber Ed Project would partially solve the shortage in books and teachers. The program would initially include 3,000 schools but would exclude those that are in first and second-class cities. Each grade and year level will have its own channel and will cover all subjects in the curriculum with each subject consisting of a 20-minute interactive computer lecture and 40-minute classroom lecture. Lapus disclosed that many private companies whose line of business is in information technology would have an avenue to extend their assistance to the community through this program. Director Lorenzo Mateo, who manages the Cyber Education Project, said in The Sunday Times that “the Cyber Ed Project is the answer to the problems of lack of learning and instructional materials for students and costly teacher training. It thought of also as a solution to the late transmission to remote areas of new policies and memorandums discussing new regulations from the DepEd central office to the different regional offices and the schools themselves…and that public schools suffer from lack of relevant instructional and learning materials and rely heavily on textbooks. Also, the work of training close to 500,000 public school teachers to become experts in a single subject takes years and is costly, with DepEd allotting an average of P5,000 for every teacher.” “The cyber education project of DepEd will dramatically improve the delivery of quality basic education through ICT to thousands of public schools in remote barangays,” said President Arroyo during the Corporate Social Responsibility Expo 2007 on July 16 (The Sunday Times). Unfortunately, sometime in September 2007, the $460-M Cyber Education deal between the Philippine government and China was marred by political chaos in the Philippines. After a month of uncertainty, Trade Secretary Peter Favila, as divulged by the Philippine Inquirer, announced that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did not scrap DepEd’s P26.48-billion Cyber Education Project. As always, public opinion is divided on this matter. Supporters of DepEd’s Cyber Ed Project like Mr. Conrado R. Banal III wrote at the Philippine Inquirer that “the project would use technology to save our education system, which our neighbors have been using for more than 10 years now. Thailand for instance!” He claimed that “the satellite system would have allowed a teacher at the Philippine Science High School who has doctorate degree in Physics to give a lecture of 20 minutes a day to all the physics students in all public schools in the country.” He further added that “If the project has flaws, the answer is to correct them. If some people are making money out of it, the solution is simply to shoot them.” Focusing on the importance of Cyber Education through television, Banal wrote: In the past 13 years, the ABS-CBN Foundation, together with the Department of Education, has been producing education TV shows for elementary school subjects such as mathematics, science and English. They were just 20-minute shows, shown in almost 8,000 schools nationwide. Recently, the foundation documented the results of those TV education shows. It used two schools in a validation test, assigning one as the experimental school that used the TV shows, and the other as the control school that did not use the program. As expected the students in the experimental schools got significantly higher grades in the tests than those in the control school. In science subjects, moreover, the grades of the students in the experimental schools increased by 8 percentage points after three months of educational TV shows. Jenny Rose Olfindo , a university student, though not in favor of the Cyber Ed program commented: The advantages of television education cannot be denied. Regular television programs are enriched with entertaining visualizations, making it easier for the viewer to process the information he acquires from them. One does not necessarily have to have a cable to access different channels. There is always an antenna, no matter how bad the reception is, to back up. News, movies, soap operas and all other kinds of programs are only a few clicks on the remote control. Given the relative importance of and exposure in television, it is not surprising that the government used this medium to address the poor education quality in the country. A 12-channel television network specifically focused on the five subject areas would be a big leap in television programming amidst commercialization and advertising issues if the program is pursued. Surprisingly, it seemed like there are more voices that are against or dubious of DepEd’s Cyber Education Project. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers provided specific details and situations to refute DepEd’s claims: - no studies on effectivity of live TV-based instruction in basic education real school situation: - District, Sarangani School, Glan 879 students, 27 teachers, 10 classrooms, 268 desks/chairs 1:32 teacher-pupil ratio 1:88 classroom-student ratio 3.28 pupil seating ratio - 1 TV every 219 students impossible to provide for all grade levels simultaneously clustering scheme to pad the figures if implemented, means displacement of pupils in 11,176 schools - No mention whatsoever of maintenance costs - Deped EDPITAF Director Jess Mateo: LGUs will be asked to get funding from their Special Education Fund (SEF) for the maintenance of the project. - Philippine Administrative Network Project - Php 411 million, French gov’t loan, completed in 2001; uses same VSAT technology as CEP - Connects Office of the Press Secretary, PIA, NBN (TV), and other related offices - “dust magnets:” “Today, the PANP system is barely used because ‘there’s no MOOE (maintenance and operations funds)’ to keep it running…” - Overprice Philippine Business for Education (PBED): - CEP multimedia classroom @ Php 479,000 - Gearing up for Interconnectivity and Learning to Assist Schools (GILAS) @ Php 300,000 (10 personal computers, one server, one printer, one LAN, one year free Internet connection) - Knowledge Channel @ P100,000-P130,000 per institution - It fails to address the roots of the problems in basic education. - high dropouts, declining completion, low achievement levels; declining status of teachers - chronic underspending on education, prioritization of debt payments and military spending - general economic crisis - investing in technology, not people - It lacks transparency. - Official Development Assistance (ODA) from China (3% over 10 years) - Contract signed in the presence of PGMA on April 21, 2007 in Boao, - - China together with the NBN and other projects - Original contracts were “stolen” and subsequently reconstituted The Philippine Star divulged that in the 11-page PBED paper on the project, it was noted that the DepEd has quoted an excessively high price for the so-called multi-media classrooms to be set up in 37,794 of the more than 42,000 public schools all over the country. The nominal cost set by DepEd for one multi-media classroom was said to be P479,000. PBED revealed that the nominal cost of outfitting a multi-media classroom in each school (two PCs, four television sets, one printer, one send/receive antenna) is roughly P479,000 and by any estimate, that appears to be excessive. The study pointed out that in two similar projects undertaken by private groups with DepEd to provide digital education using technology to certain schools, the costs were notably lower. One of the two programs was the Gearing up for Interconnectivity and Learning to Assist Schools (GILAS) program launched in 2003 that was intended to connect public high schools that already have computer laboratories or classrooms to the Internet. GILAS provides an Internet-connected school environment for P300,000 per school, which already included 10 personal computers, one server, one printer, one local area network arrangement, and a year of free Internet connection. The Knowledge Channel program to equip certain schools with education through one-way education television programs, meanwhile, only costs P100,000-P130,000 per institution. Rony Diaz, a columnist of the Manila Times had this inquiry: Is cyber education suitable for basic education? If the measures of effective learning are understanding and retention, how does Secretary Lapus know that these outcomes can be achieved by CEP? Related questions concerning teacher training, school planning, the right blending of traditional and new methods should also be asked. The use of technology to improve basic education should be encouraged. However, the technology should be appropriate and affordable. Patricia Evangelista of the Philippine Inquirer had this observation: The CEP proposes to deliver education through the sophisticated mechanisms of satellites, television and computers to Filipino classrooms. Without the classrooms, without the teachers, without the electric sockets to plug in the thousands of computers and televisions that have to be bought on taxpayers’ money, the CEP proposal appears to be crafted for an entirely different country. At the moment, 51 percent of Filipinos have had only elementary education. Only 14.3 percent of rural poor Filipinos graduate from high school or have higher educational attainment. Even with multilateral and bilateral institutions pouring in millions into textbook development, stories of defective and substandard textbooks have made it into the news. It is patently obvious that reforms are necessary in many areas of public education—and investment in satellite technology is not only unsuited to the problem, it will be done at the expense of thousands of students possibly going to new classrooms. Not to mention the effectiveness of the program—how can computers and televisions be effective teachers to a class of 50, especially if real teachers are either unable or not present to apply television lessons to the individual difficulties of students? A blog on the Cyber Ed project was written by Dong Calmada who openly expressed opposition of the project and thus gave these recommendations: 1. Give a full accounting of its ICT projects, including their impact. 2. Have clear guidelines on how the project will be implemented, including procurement of equipment and the software applications that will be used. The guidelines must be clear about open standards, including the software source codes and document formats. 3. Come up with a feasibility study, which should include DepEd’s capacity to implement the project as well as the project’s assumptions and risk analysis. Unless the abovementioned are done, the CEP will be another scam in Philippine history. And no one will bear the brunt but the tax-paying Filipino citizens, rich or poor. Finally, Martin Perez, an educator, had this reminder: Moreover, a school is not just a building, with rooms full of books and chairs. It is also an integral part of a community, especially in rural areas. Local government units must sustain communities where children stay in school. There must be water, electricity and food. The mere fact that a lot of schools in our country lack these most basic necessities raises the question of how responsive, practical and responsible CEP can be. All of the above important information and points for discussion were collected from various online articles, columns, blogs, studies and reports. It is hoped that this compilation has objectively presented the advantages and disadvantages of the Cyber Education Project of the Philippine government and public opinions on the pressing issues relating to it.
Alliance of Concerned Teachers. “Bakit Nating Tutulan ang Cyber Education Project ng DepEd at Malacanang?” http://www.bloggerskapihan.com/wpcontent /uploads/bk2/ACT%20cyber%20education%20project%20Oct%202007.pdf Banal III, Conrado. 2007. “Who’s afraid of education hi-tech tools?” http://business.inquirer.net/money/columns/view_article.php?article_id=92394 Calmada, Dong. 2007. “Cyber Education Project: The best response to challenges in Philippine education?” http://activism102.wordpress.com/2007/09/21 /cyber-education-project-the-best-response-to-challenges-in-philippine-education/ Department of Education, Philippines. 2007. “The Cyber Education Project. ” http://www.deped.gov.ph/cpanel/uploads/issuanceImg/CyberED%2018.IX.07_files/frame.htm Department of Education, Philippines. 2007. “Cyber Ed to boost quality education for all.” http://www.deped.gov.ph/updates/updateslinks.asp?id=182 Diaz, Rony V. 2007. “Is cyber education worth the money?” http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/june/03/yehey/opinion/20070603opi2.html Elchico, Alvin. 2007. “Thailand vows to help RP’s Cyber-ed program. ” http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=92712 Evangelista, Patricia. 2007. “Assuming that”. http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=90145 Hicap, Jonathan M. 2007. “How CEP will serve entire archipelago’s school system.” http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/aug/19/yehey/top_stories/20070819top2.html Olchondra, Riza. 2007. “Illiteracy more costly than education.” http://services.inquirer.net/express/07/11/05/html_output/xmlhtml/20071104-98805-xml.html Olfindo, Jenny Rose. 2007. “Substitutes.” http://www.malaya.com.ph/aug24/edreader.htm Perez, Martin. 2007. “Why I am NOT excited about the Cyber Education Project?” http://sirmartin.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/why-i-am-not-excited-about-the-cyber-education-project/ Sun Star Manila. 2007. “Cyber education now offered to students.” http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/man/2007/06/20/feat/cyber.education.now.offered.to.students.html Ubac Michael Lim and Esplanada Jerry E. 2007. “ $460-M Cyber Education deal not scrapped.” http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view_article.php?article_id=92399 Zhiting, Zhu. 2004. “The Development and Applications of eLearning Technology Standards in China.” http://www.ijcim.th.org/v12n2/pdf/p100-104-Zhu-Zhiting-elearning%20in%20China.pdf |
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