ICT TEACHER TRAINING FOR A MORE COMPETITIVE PHL

Senator Edgardo J. Angara has called for a nationwide Information and Communications Technology (ICT) training for teachers to make the country more globally competitive and make the teaching profession more attractive to the youth.

"Clearly, there is a need for ICT teacher training and faculty development especially in far flung provinces like Aurora," Angara said after a three-day crash course for teachers in Aurora organized by IBM and the Asia Pacific College Center this week.

The teachers and principals of Aurora were taught new theoretical approaches to early learning, the theory of multiple intelligences, center-based learning, lesson planning.

"Educators learning to use basic productivity tools such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation is one step further in producing highly skilled workers in programming, digitally-aided designs, hardware, networking and software development," said Angara, who is the Chair of the Senate committee on Education, Arts and Culture.

The veteran senator cited the 2012 Global Information Technology Report which showed that the Philippines, ranking 86th, is lower than most of its Southeast Asian neighbors in a global survey looking into the "network readiness" of 142 countries.

"We should all strive to scale up our knowledge when it comes to ICT and improve our ranking in this report especially now that we are aiming for an ICT driven economy.

"Through our educators, we should prepare our youth, while they are still young, to meet the technological challenges of the new century and make them competitive in the global labor market," said Angara, who also Chairs the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE).

"Our attempts to reform and improve the educational system will be for nothing if we fail to equip our teachers with the necessary skills, and if less of our students see teaching as a viable career," he stressed.