Philippines is SMS capital of the world

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October 6, 2006

The Philippines has achieved the distinction of becoming the “SMS capital of the world”. In 2005, Filipinos sent an average of 250 million text messages a day, according to the country's telecom regulator, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). At a base cost of two US cents a message, telecom companies in the Philippines earned a whopping US$5 million every day on text messaging alone.

According to a study undertaken by Ms Lorraine Carlos Salazar, Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, and a Senior Researcher of LIRNEasia (a regional information and communication technology policy and regulation research and capacity building organisation), about 95 per cent of mobile telephone subscribers in the Philippines use their mobile phones for text messaging. Of this, 70 per cent send around 10 messages a day even as 14 per cent send between 10 and 20 messages a day.

The high incidence of text messaging in the Philippines has been attributed to several factors. Text messages at a base price of two US cents per message is cheaper than calls that cost between nine and 15 US cents depending upon the plan chosen by the customer. The NTC has attributed the upsurge in text messaging to promotional gimmicks of mobile phone service providers.

In over a decade of liberalisation, the telecom sector in the Philippines has produced a highly competitive environment where 74 local exchange carriers, 14 inter-carrier carrier services, 11 international gateway facilities and seven cellular telephone service providers operate. From a country with a teledensity of less than one per 100 people between 1970 and 1990, the Philippines has a fixed line teledensity of four per 100 people and a mobile phone density of 41.3 per 100 people in 2005. Today, about 50 per cent of the revenues earned by Filipino telecom companies are from wireless data services.

ICT in more school classrooms in Philippines

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digitalLEARNING Network

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October 5, 2006

Under the Personal Computers for Public Schools Project (PCPS), jointly implemented by the Government of Japan and the Government of the Philippines, an additional 11 public secondary schools in Capiz have received 10 computer sets each.

Representatives from other government agencies and offices involved in the project were present at the ceremony. The project was launched in 2002 and is now on its third phase. It is being implemented through the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and GILAS Foundation with the support of the Congress of the Philippines and local government units. The DTI, the lead agency of the project, also has a programme for local government units under the E-LGU. Till now, towns of Pilar, President Roxas, Maayon, Sapian, Jamindan, Tapaz, Dumarao, Dumalag and Dao have acquired 5 computer sets each under this E-LGU programme.

Google launches literacy portal

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digitalLEARNING Network

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October 5, 2006

Search engine Google has launched a portal to connect literacy organisations around the world. The Literacy Project enables teachers, organisations, and those interested in literacy to use the Internet to search for and share literacy information.

Users can search for information in digitised books and academic articles, and share information through blogs, videos and groups. The tool also allows people to find literacy organisations around the world using a searchable and zoomable map. It has been created in collaboration with the Frankfurt Book Fair literacy campaign (Litcam) and Unesco's Institute for Lifelong Learning. Users can now use it to search through an archive of digitised books to uncover the literature that contains their words of phrases of choice. Publishers, such as Penguin and HarperCollins, and libraries, including Oxford University's, have allowed Google to scan their books. If the book is in copyright, users can only access limited information; if it is out of copyright, it can be downloaded.

IIT among world’s 100 best universities

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digitalLEARNING Network

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October 5, 2006

The Indian Institute of Technology has joined the premier league of best universities in the world. According to the rankings compiled by the Times Higher Education Supplement, India’s premier science and technology education centre is ranked No.57 in the global list.

American and British universities comprised nearly half of the top 100 universities in the world. United States led the way with 33 universities in the top 100, while Britain ranked second with 15. Australia and the Netherlands were next with seven each, while Switzerland and France followed with five. Hong Kong, Japan, Canada and Germany each had three to their credit. China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, had two apiece, along with Singapore, New Zealand and Belgium. Denmark, South Korea, Mexico, Ireland, Austria and Russia all had one university in the top 100.

Harvard University in Massachusetts topped the poll, with Cambridge and Oxford in England coming second and third. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University tied for fourth, with Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology ranking sixth and seventh. The University of California at Berkeley was eighth, Imperial College London was ninth, and Princeton University completed the top 10. The highest-ranking Asian university was Beijing University, coming in at 15th – also the highest rank for a non-US or British institution. Australian National University was Australia’s best at 16th, while France’s Ecole Normale Superieure was continental Europe’s best at 18th. The rankings were compiled by asking 3,703 academics worldwide to name the 30 best universities for research in their field of expertise, along with responses from 736 graduate employers globally, along with the ratio of faculty to students, and the university’s ability to draw foreign students and world-renowned academics.

Video games have role in school

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digitalLEARNING Network

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October 5, 2006

Video games could have a serious role to play in the classroom, a survey of teachers and students suggests. The Teaching with Games report was commissioned by games giant Electronic Arts (EA) and carried out by FutureLab.

It surveyed almost 1,000 teachers and more than 2,300 primary and secondary school students in the UK. The survey found 59% of teachers would consider using off-the-shelf games in the classroom while 62% of students wanted to use games at school. The report, which was also backed by Microsoft, Take Two, as well as the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE), found evidence of concern from both teachers and students about the impact of games on players. Some 55% of students thought videogames would make for more interesting lessons. More than 70% of the surveyed teachers felt that playing games could lead to anti-social behaviour while 30% of students believed that playing games could lead to increased violence and aggression.

There are three key objectives with the report – to understands teachers' and students' use of computer games in the classroom. The report authors also followed 12 teachers at four schools in the UK and looked at ways they could use commercial software in the classroom. More than 70% of teachers never play games outside school while 82% of children said they played video games at least once a fortnight.

Intel launches e-Learning facility in Abuja

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digitalLEARNING Network

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October 5, 2006

Nigerian educational system has taken a giant leap forward with the launch of Intel classroom e-Learning facility in Jabi near Abuja.

The facility designed by Intel, the global semiconductor design and engineering giant will enable the school to make Information Communication and Technology (ICT) an everyday teaching and learning tool. Intel Corporation launched the project as part of the World Ahead Program in Nigeria, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Targeted on people in developing communities, the World Ahead program extends Intel's efforts to advance progress in accessibility, connectivity, and education. Following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Intel signed with the Education Ministry to further the cause of integrating modern information and communication technologies into the country's education, the initiative strategies, Intel's World Ahead programme will help provide wireless-enabled digital classrooms to students. The e-learning facility offers a complete solution with integrated software and hardware, delivering an end-to-end solution for education involving students, parents, teachers and schools in a student-friendly form that will enhance the learning experience at an affordable price with minimal IT infrastructure.

Singapore institutes to take in more Indian students

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October 5, 2006

Singapore Education is looking at hosting an international student population of 1,50,000 by 2015, up from the current level of 70,000-plus.

India is one of its key source markets along with Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and China. For this, the Singapore Tourism Board, the promotion agency for Singapore Education, is engaging in a variety of activities including organising education exhibitions, conducting public seminars, training education counsellors and advertising and publicity. The number of Indian students pursuing their education in Singapore has seen a 21% growth in 2005 over 2004.

In order to ensure easier access to information on Singapore Education for Indian students, the network of Singapore Education specialists (SES) accredited in India will also grow. Students from India tend to go in for their MBAs as well as courses in engineering, IT, sciences and business. There's also an emerging interest in hospitality and design.

ICT test to be passed in Nigeria to become teachers

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digitalLEARNING Network

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October 5, 2006

The Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) has directed that teachers can only be registered if they are able to pass a professional qualifying examination where ICT will be a key part which they must pass in order to be registered.

The Director of Operations, TRCN, Dr. Steve Njoku said that registered teachers will be issued with practising licenses which they will be required to renew periodically as done in other professions. He described the Internet as 'The Super Highway'. The TRCN director of operations mentioned that teachers and students are in a race which has become dramatic because the pupils seem to be leading the teachers in e-Capabilities. Njoku disclosed that TRCN is establishing practising ICT centres, two in each of the geo-political areas of the country. Each centre will have a minimum of 100 computers and Internet connectivity and will be open to registered teachers to practise free of charge. Teachers trained in ICT can be used to train others.

ICT centre by December in 102 Unity Schools in Nigeria

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October 4, 2006

A fund has been approved for building physical structure for ICT Centres in all the 102 Unity Schools in Nigeria, to be equipped with multi-billion Naira ICT facilities.

The fund amount is N1.32 billion and all will be commissioned by December this year as stated by the Executive Secretary of the Petreleum Technolgy Development Fund (PTDF), Alh. Adamu Maina Waziri. Waziri has mentioned that the future of Nigerian children is tied to their proficiency in ICT, called on state government to emulate the standards set by the Fund. He announced that PTDF is also embarking on the same initiative in 20 Colleges of Education and 24 universities spread across the six zones of the country.

Akshara maps Indian schools

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October 3, 2006

Karnataka Learning Partnership (KLP), an Akshara Foundation and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan initiative, has launched a Google-powered GIS map of Indian city Bangalore covering 1400 Government schools.

KLP had undertaken a project to improve the learning outcome among primary school children in all government schools in Karnataka. In the first phase, the programme has covered 1400 government schools in Bangalore. Simple baseline test was conducted in all the schools for students between second standard to seventh standard. It was found that out of 1,83,000 students, 46 per cent of the students were unable to read fluently. The entire information captured in the GIS map is available on the website karnatakalearningpartnership.org.

The map gives details of number of students, teachers in each school, the statistics and charts on the percentage of students who can read and who cannot read. It gives the percentage of students literacy level in each school from zero level (where the child can barely identify 25 per cent of the alphabet) to Paragraph level (here the student can read the entire paragraph). It also gives information on performance by gender, class performance, performance by medium of instruction. KLP is the space created by the Foundation along with SSS to create awareness about the literacy status among children. The GIS mapping gives a complete picture of the literacy status among the children between second to seventh standard students. Now Akshara Foundation has taken up Accelerated Reading Programme to improve reading ability of students in each school.

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