Every high school student in Davao del Norte now has full access to the information superhighway, as the province led the race in achieving a hundred percent internet connectivity of all its secondary schools.
GILAS Mindanao Senior Manager Archimedes Velasco revealed all public high schools of Davao del Norte are now connected to the worldwide web, making it the first Mindanao province to attain a 100 percent connectivity.
Velasco attributed the success of the GILAS (Gearing-Up Internet Literacy and Access for Students) project in the province to the commitment and support of Governor Rodolfo del Rosario, together with the support of all the project partners.
In support of the RDR WHEELS program, the governor provided a counterpart of almost P4 million to ensure the cyberspace connection of some 29 public high schools in the province.
Governor del Rosario pursued the project to empower and equip the Dabaonon students with the skills necessary for them to compete with their counterparts from other parts of the country and the rest of the world.
“Connecting our classrooms to the internet opens up floodgates of knowledge for our students,” he said, adding the technology levels the academic arena to those who have and don’t have access to relevant educational resources.
The cyberspace, he noted, affords borderless learning with the capability of making education much more interesting, flexible, and effective in meeting the needs of learners.
Davao del Norte DepEd Schools Division Superintendent Aurora Cubero cited the impact of the project in the academic performance of the students.
She revealed the province finished second in a recent national math competition, which she attributed to the students’ access to a wealth of information available on the Internet.
DepEd-11 Regional Director Susana Estigoy further assured that the department will take on the challenge of sustaining the project.
Out of 6,511 public high schools in the Philippines, GILAS has so far connected 2533. GILAS looks forward to providing Internet connectivity to all public high schools by 2010. Noel Baguio |
