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text2teach Expands to Northern Philippines

In its latest implementation, text2teach becomes text2teach 500 as it moves to the provinces of Northern Philippines in response to a request of former DepEd Officer-in-Charge Dr. Fe Hidalgo to bring the project to Regions I and II and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

text2teach is a learning system that makes use of mobile telecommunications and satellite technologies to access and video and audio materials for classroom use, designed for places with limited access to quality teaching and learning materials.

A thre-year project, text2teach 500 builds on the successes of its predecessors: BridgeIT and ELSA. On the first year, the target is to implement the project in 100 schools across the provinces of Isabela, Tuguegarao, Mountain Province and Benguet. The Center's partners for the project include Nokia, Globe Telecom, Chikka, PMSI-Dream Broadcasting, and Ayala Foundation—the project's national convenor.

In June 2006, the Technical Help Desk for tex2teach of SEAMEO INNOTECH conducted an initial site assessment in the CAR and its neighboring provinces to collect data and appraise the suitability of the localities for the expansion of text2teach project in Northern Luzon. The data collected focused on the readiness of the schools divisions for ICT-enabled instruction; commitment of division officials for projects of this nature; division's performance; access to power source and availability of nobile phone signal; security concerns; and the history of community support and utilization of previous and existing projects.

Assessment findings show that the Divisions of CAR have been performing poorly on the subjects of English, Science and Math, based on the results of the National Achievement Test. Poor performance in Filipino and HEKASI (civics) has been noted in the Divisons of Abra and Apayao.

Except for the Divisions of Benguet, Baguio, and Mountain Province, majority of schools have access to electricity. The Divisions are covered by teh two major telecommunications company although some areas are not reached by Globe mobile phone signal.

Limited learning resource packages were provided to the seven Divisions of CAR mainly by ABS-CBN's Adopt-a-School Project. However, the utilization of these packages was not sustained due to technical problems which were not addressed by the project.

Dr. Cesar Adaoag, Apayao Schools Division Superintendent, observed that schools with television-assisted instruction have shown improved performance in the National Achievement Test and reduced cases of absenteeism and tardiness among students, but cohort survival rate remains low at 68.37 percent. Abra lists 89.58 percent; Kalinga, 69.19 percent; Ifugao, 71.69 percent; Mountain Province, 80.47 percent; Benguet, 77.77 percent, and Baguo 78.75 percent.

New teachers and school heads in Benguet, Abra and Ifugao have been trained in ICT-enabled instruction. On the other hand, the Division of Kalinga received computers through the Congressional Community Development Fund but are not being utilized due to the lack of ICT-skilled teachers.

Security is also very unstable in remote Schools Districts of Abra dur to communist insurgency and political rivalries. sporadic tribal wars have been reported in upper Apayao and Kalinga. Possible areas of project implementation in Benguet and Mountain Province are secure while cases of highway robbery have been reported in Ifugao.

Based on the findings, it was recommended that text2teach pilot implementation in Northern Luzon be concentrated in the Divisions of Benguet and Mountain Province. The Schools Division Superintendents of said Divisions have shown considerable enthusiasm and knowledge as well as readiness to mobilize resources for the possible implementation of text2teach in their areas. It was also recommended that Divisions under Region II - Isabela be considered for the project implementation since passiong through a number of Region II Divisions is the best way to access some of the CAR Divisions. Also recommended as potential project sire is the Division of Tuguegarao.

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