Philippines

The Philippines is a developing country with an agriculture based economy. There is some light industry and the service sector is growing. Only 9.1% of the population has reliable access to the internet and this is primarily in urban areas. Though there has been an increase of 250% of access since 2000, access growth has not been as strong as other countries in the area. With more investment and continuing teacher professional development, World Links is hoping to expand access and improve the quality of education.

World Links in the Philippines

World Links has been working with funds from the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) to implement a regional teacher professional development program in Filipino secondary schools. The principal objective of the ASEAN SchoolNet project is to help disadvantaged youth in ASEAN countries develop the knowledge, skills and experience they need to get jobs in the global knowledge economy. The countries of ASEAN have expressed a keen interest in promoting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competencies among their populations and in preparing ASEAN students to enter the labor market with the necessary skills to compete in a global economy increasingly driven by knowledge and information. This project will provide hardware, software and teacher training to selected schools in four ASEAN countries as a means to explore and demonstrate sustainable solutions for mobilizing the necessary technologies, training, and educational resources to improve teaching and learning outcomes. The pilot schools are to serve as models and learning labs in their respective countries. The JSDF has provided support through the World Bank to implement this regional program that will include national pilot programs in four countries: Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Projects and Achievements

In the Philippines World Links has trained 83 Master Teacher Trainers on web-enhanced learning activities and an additional 18 teachers on telecollaborative learning lessons. Through the World Links cascade model of training, another 424 teachers have been trained using our materials. Thirteen schools have participated in telecollaborative projects involving approximately 600 students. The Philippines has been one of World Links’ most successful projects and a model to other countries in the region.

Additionally, in September of 2006, World Links sponsored an ICT in Education Regional Policy Forum in Cebu City. Twenty education policymakers and planners from the five target countries attended. The objective of the Forum was to provide participants the opportunity to share their technology experiences in education and discuss key policy issues. Session topics included access and equity, infrastructure, professional development, language and culture, curriculum and content development, financing, and monitoring & evaluation.  For more information on this seminar our ICT in Education Page

Please visit the "Our Village " project site for information on World Links' projects in the ASEAN countries.