Adaptation of Information and communications technology (ICT) in educational institutions in the Philippines has triggered a lot of challenges, a college dean revealed.
Prof. Eric Emberda, Information Technology (IT) Program Dean of the University of the Immaculate Concepcion (UIC) revealed that most people in the academe are not continuously updated with the ICT-related skills, including usage of office softwares.
Emberda is one of the speakers during the Internet Governance Symposium organized by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) and Internet Society – Philippines Chapter (ISOC-PH) on Tuesday at The Royal Mandaya Hotel.
He said that there is a need to develop the Information Media and Technologies in the academic institutions, as it is one of the key factors that drive the modern education.
“There have been difficulties for our DepEd (Department of Education) counterparts to help these schools specially those located in far flung areas,” Emberda said.
The IT director sees the problem as a challenge for higher education system in preparing the youth for a higher level function in the industrial revolution of technology.
Other challenges that were raised are the lack of ICT Human Resource personnel, inconsistency of ICT Programs for schools and the lack of data for research.
The lack of internet bandwidth within institution is also a major challenge, resulting to educators and students shedding out additional expenditures to utilize the internet. This despite DepEd and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) having rolled out its ICT intensifying program this year in all schools and universities nationwide.
Emberda urged the telecommunication companies to provide internet service promos for faculty and students with unmetered bandwidth, in order to access unlimited Internet services.
