UNESCO cites RP for use of ICT in education

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines through the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) has won a commendation from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for a project to digitize non-formal education in the country, a government executive has told INQUIRER.net.

The UNESCO commendation is one of several awards given to initiatives and projects that make use of information and communications technology in education.

The CICT was among those recognized under the non-formal educator category.

In an interview, CICT commissioner Tim Diaz de Rivera said the project, eSkwela, a play on the Filipino term for school, is a joint project of the agency and the Bureau of Alternative Learning Systems (BALS) of the Department of Education.

The Bureau of Alternative Learning Systems offers a home-study program for out-of-school youths wanting to finish high school. Among the popular beneficiaries of this program is Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao, according to Diaz de Rivera.

“But he was not yet part of what we’re doing,” Diaz de Rivera said, as he explained that the CICT and the BALS started working on the eSkwela project last year.

The esKwela project is currently digitizing the different modules offered by the program. The digitized content is now being loaded onto computer servers that are being deployed nationwide through another program of the CICT, Diaz de Rivera said.

“We’re also turning the content into interactive modules,” added Diaz de Rivera, who pointed out that this initiative is different from the CyberEd project of the Department of Education.

The eSkwela project is currently being pilot tested in four sites: in San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan; a telecommunications office in Roces, Quezon City; in Mandaue, Cebu; and in Cagayan de Oro city.

“We’re providing computers to these pilot sites,” he added. –Erwin Oliva, from INQUIRER.net