Japanese Charge d'Affaires ad interim Hidenobu Sobashima announced on June 17 the Government of Japan's approval to finance Mindanao Component of Phase 4 of the Personal Computers for Public Schools Project (PCPS 4) under the Japanese Non-Project Grant Assistance-Countervalue Fund (NPGA-CVF). The 170 million-peso NPGA-CVF will provide 10 desktop computers and computer peripherals to each of the 425 public high school beneficiaries in Mindanao, which remain to have no access to computer education.
With funding support from the Government of Japan, the Department of Trade and Industry has been spearheading the implementation of PCPS since June 2001. Phases 1, 2, and 3 of PCPS, which received a total grant of approximately 1. 8 billion pesos from the Government of Japan, have provid ed 3,714 public high schools with computers and, thus, reduced the computer backlog in secondary public education from 75% in 2001 to 37% to date.
The Project, which is part of the Government of Japan's concrete steps to narrow the i nternational d igital d ivide between developed and developing countries, seeks to contribute to the Philippine government's efforts to develop its human resource capital in the field of Information Technology (IT), thereby enabling the country to become an IT hub. In addition, consistent with a view of the Department of Education to close the gap between the traditional madrasah (Muslim community school) curriculum and the DepEd basic education, Mindanao component of PCPS4 seeks to give attention to the needs of Muslim basic education by providing computers to public high schools for Muslim students.
By funding PCPS 4 , the Government of Japan reiterates its support to President Arroyo's ten-point agenda, which includes the continuous improvement of the Philippine educational system through the provision of necessary facilities.
