“It is important to know if the ICT equipment we have deployed serves its intended functions and objectives,” Toni Torres, iSchools Project Manager, told FutureGov. “We need to gauge if the current PC to student ratio is sufficient to enable schools to address their own needs.”

A recent local survey of iSchools recipient schools revealed that there is a poor PC to student ratio in most Philippine schools – as many as up to 600 students share a single computer.

The Project Monitoring and Evaluation Information System (PMEIS), of which the computer usage application is a part, “is a necessary feedback mechanism – a way to become more responsive to our schools’ needs,” she added.

The PMEIS includes a database for all 1000 recipient schools of the iSchools Project. The usage application will be deployed to maintain the database.

Beneficiaries of the iSchools project will receive training on how to use the application this month (October). “We aim to train all SUC (State University and College) Open Source Technology Experts, so that they will be able to train their counterparts at the public school level for data encoding and maintenance purposes,” Torres said.

Initial reports from the field have shown that some teachers are able to use the basic functionalities of the computers and productivity tools. “The expectation of the project, however, is to encourage the teachers to use this knowledge to help them manage lesson planning, delivery and assessment,” Torres added.