Experts full of questions on CyberEd

The Department of Education's Project CyberEd came to public attention at a rather unfortunate time when the controversial ZTE national broadband project hogged the headlines. Like the National Broadband Network, the Cyber-Ed project will cost multibillion pesos in loans under the Bilateral Framework of Economic Cooperation between the Philippines and China (January 2007). Thus, it was not surprising that CyberEd tweaked the public mind too.

Reactions to the proposed Cyber-Ed project started circulating in the Internet and in the major broadsheets. Questions were raised as to the wisdom of the project more particularly regarding the apparent swiftness by which it seemed to have been approved.

From the Department of Education, we learned that the Bilateral Framework Agreement between the Philippines and China, including information communications technology (ICT) in education, was signed in June 2006. The technical proposal from Tsinghua University, which was designated by the Chinese government, was received in November 2007; the project proposal was submitted to NEDA Investment Coordinating Committee (ICC) in December 2006; the project was approved in March 2007; and a memorandum of agreement effected in April 2007 between the Education department and Tsinghua National Nuctech Co. for CyberEd.

The initial project investment for year one is $100 million Chinese official development assistance (ODA) plus the Philippine government counterpart of P5.8 billion. The total project investment is P26.48 billion with $200 million Chinese ODA for phase 2 and $150 million Chinese ODA for phase 3. In sum, 86 percent of the project cost over a five-year period will be through a concessional loan from China, while 14 percent will be sourced from the Philippine government.

In his presentation at the November 9, 2007, roundtable discussion hosted by The Manila Times College, Director Jesus L.R. Mateo, officer in charge of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning Services at the Education department, highlighted the challenges and age-old problems of basic education and underscored the need for a two-track approach in addressing the crisis-making sure all learners get the necessary resources to enable learning and providing quality interventions that enhance the effectiveness of the basic resources.

The Education department looks at the Cyber-Ed project as the "quickest and most cost-effective way to deliver high quality education to all learners" and "a total solution to multiple persisting educational problems." As envisioned, CyberEd will be the overarching framework for all education ICT initiatives in the public basic-education sector.

By historical standards of education projects in the country, the project is undoubtedly huge. For infrastructure alone, CyberEd will have a nationwide virtual network utilizing satellite technology: 12 video channels, wireless wide area networking and Internet to schools, even in the remotest areas. The coverage is 37,794 elementary and secondary schools, 26,618 of which will receive the equipment. The rest will be covered through what the Education department calls the clustering scheme. All grade and year levels will be covered.

The infrastructure includes a master production center in the Education department's central office, primary and backup data centers, network operations and satellite communication centers, regional and division ICT units, virtual classroom studios, virtual training studio in National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP) in Baguio City. Schools will be provided television sets, personal computers, printer, local media server and two-way antenna set.

State of readiness

Education's Office of the Secretary Chief of Staff Glenn Sumido was quite forthright in response to a query regarding the readiness of the department for CyberEd. "If only we had a similar forum, like today's forum, when the CyberEd was being developed, we would not be going back to square one. This has been a major lesson learned."

Maybe the project elicited so many reactions because little is known about it. The public and more particularly the stakeholders in public education do not have access to full information on how CyberEd came to be; what the details are regarding the four project components-infrastructure, courseware, training and quality assurance, what are the costs involved.

The ICT4E is a strategic framework on ICT for education formulated by the Education department, which is still being subjected to validation. The framework spouses three components: ICT for pedagogy, ICT for teacher development, and ICT for the governance of the Education department.

With Belina Sb. Capul And Grace V. Agoncillo

(To be continued)

Dr. Patron is a consultant to National Broadcasting Network. Belina SB. Capul is staff director for the Management Information Systems, Philippine Information Agency; Grace V. Agoncillo is staff director for Human Resource Development, Philippine Information Agency. Patron, Capul and Agoncillo were members of the executive committee of the November 9, 2007, roundtable on the Cyber-Education project convened by The Manila Times College in coordination with the UP National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development.