Tech Gap in PH Public Schools

The educational system of the Republic of the Philippines is a cluttered one. Besides the crowded rooms, the limited books, and the obsolete curriculum, our schools are faced with numerous unsolved problems which need immediate solutions. Our nation is a home to great minds, but with the absence of a good educational system, our hope might as well go fade away.

It is not hidden to our naked eyes that schools in our nation are not at paced with the technological advancement that other academic institutions abroad are experiencing. Our schools are home to second-hand outdated computers. We lack e-learning facilities. A large fraction of schools don’t even have laboratories and if they do, the ratio of computers to students might go higher than one is to fifty.

We keep on claiming that we are becoming the technological hub of the ASEAN with our fast growing costumer support industry, our skilled and talented coders, and our growing number of IT workers. Now, it is really ironic that we are declaring such a glamorous name when we cannot offer our elementary and high school students quality education specially in field of Information and Communication Technology.

What I see right now is that our officials are not that interested with regards to educational reforms. They are more interested in publicly displaying their capabilities of interrogating criminals and witnesses on the plenary hall when issues like corruption, killings and scandals surface but not in passing resolutions for the development of our educational system. One can even deduce that they are not interested with issues regarding our school because they are less publicized.

This is one of the primary reasons why we have not moved as a nation. We have always been behind when we talk of technological and educational development. Yes, we have world champions in academics, but these champions are products of private schools where mentoring is way better as compared to much of our public high schools. Face it, when you are in the Philippines, you can only have a good education if you are capable of spending more than a common Filipino can afford.

Technological gap in our classrooms and schools in the past few years have been slowly addressed with the aid of our NGO’s and generous individuals who believes in the importance of technology in making our students equally competitive in the field of computer science. I believe that our financial need to meet this gap is not that big as compared to what have been stolen by our corrupt officials. We can still go on track and join in the race if we start now. We may not go as far as other nations can but at least let’s not get lost in the trail of the modern era of computers science.

This is the challenge that we must impose to our government. Make our educational system better by addressing concerns in the field of ICT. Give our students the equal opportunity other nations are giving to their young ones in this fast growing field. Let us drive our nation towards the road of Information Superhighway!