STI aims to train 6,000 teachers in basic IT
The computer school STI is expected to train another 6,500 public high school teachers as a continuation of its Teacher Training Program, which it started with the Department of Education three years ago.
STI has already started offering free training in basic IT education to teachers in several branches for the summer. The course covers basic knowledge on word processing, spreadsheets and presentation skills, hardware troubleshooting, and Internet use.
STI Public Affairs Manager Restituto Bundoc said 103 STI branches nationwide would offer the Teacher Training Program. It is expected that 25 teachers will be trained every two days during the summer.
Bundoc said they have been working closely with DepEd district supervisors and school principals to get teachers to attend the program. So far, they have been able to fill the seats for the 18-hour training in many of their branches.
"There are even public elementary school teachers who were signing up to get the training," Bundoc said.
The Teacher Training Program started two years ago and has already trained nearly 6,000 teachers, more than 4,000 of whom were trained in the first year alone. Bundoc said training went down last year when public school teachers had to prepare for the presidential elections.
The Teacher Training Program was conceived immediately after the completion of the "PCs for Public Schools" project of the DepEd and the Department of Trade and Industry. Bundoc said some of the recipient schools did not even have the basic technical knowledge to repair their computers, which is why STI and the DepEd decided to address the knowledge gap.
