The Gearing Up Internet Literacy Access for Students or the GILAS project aims to connect all public secondary schools in the country to the Internet in five years.
The Department of Education (DepEd) in Philippines in collaboration with various leaders in the business, government, and socio-civic community has adopted and is fully supporting the GILAS project. GILAS is a multi-sectoral initiative which aims to provide Internet access for students and basic Internet literacy programmes in all the 5,443 public secondary schools in the Philippines in the next 5 years. Its mission is led by a consortium of private corporations and civic organizations, in coordination with the DepEd. The components of project include project orientation, briefings, resource mobilisation, sustainability trainings, ICT survey and validation, and other validated activities. The officials of the Department of Education are expected to help beef up the Department's participation by directing their respective school administrators and school community to support the project. Principals and others in charge of taking ownership of the schools are encouraged to actively involve themselves in the GILAS orientation, local partnership development and resource mobilisation, ICT survey and validation, launching of the project and sustainable use of ICT facilities. Primarily, senior high school students in the public schools are expected to benefit from the project.
