The Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students (GILAS)

The Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students (GILAS) project is a multi-sectoral initiative that hopes to provide Internet access and basic Internet literacy programs in all of the Philippines’ 5,443 public high schools. As of December 2004, less than 40% of the country’s public high schools have computer laboratories accessible to students, and less than 6% (or 308) of these laboratories were connected to the Internet. An estimated number of about one million public high school seniors, who are enrolled in the system every year, stand to benefit from the efforts of the GILAS project. Depending on student density and availability of PC workstations, the Internet laboratories may be made available to high school students in lower years as well. For schools that already have working computer laboratories, GILAS will provide Internet connectivity packages and the basic training necessary for teachers so that they can impart Internet literacy skills to the students. For schools that do not have working computer laboratories, GILAS will provide both laboratories (of at least ten PC units each) and the Internet connectivity packages, along with the corresponding basic training. In both cases, GILAS will provide unlimited Internet access for the laboratories for one year. Beneficiary schools are selected based on the viability of the school’s sustainability plan, its potential for mentoring neighbor schools, the availability of connectivity requirements (i.e., laboratory infrastructure and security, computer capacity, electricity, phone connection, or satellite availability) and the extent of participation among local stakeholders. A Multi-sector Effort A Steering Committee composed of leaders in government, the private sector, the social development community, and the donor community has been formed to oversee GILAS and lead the campaign for resource mobilization. Senator Manuel Roxas II and Mr. Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II, President of Ayala Corporation and Vice Chairman of the Ayala Foundation are the working Co-Chairs of the Steering Committee. Together, GILAS’ large multi-sectoral consortium hopes to meet the challenge of providing connectivity for students for the entire public high school system in the Philippines.

http://www.gilas.org

Local implementation: Philippines --- lo

Ongoing from 28/01/2005 to ongoing

* The role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
* Information and communication infrastructure
* Access to information and knowledge
* Capacity building
* Building confidence and security in use of ICTs
* Enabling environment
* ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life
* Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
* Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
* International and regional cooperation

• Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
• Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• Project
• Guidelines