Increasing Broadband Internet Penetration
In the OIC Member Countries
63
attend college, largely due to the prohibitive costs of higher education in the country. Beyond a
college education, many employers see Internet literacy as a hiring requisite, though this skill
is typically reserved for wealthier students whose families can afford household computers
and Internet connections. Without computer access or the ability to afford a college education,
many students have few opportunities awaiting them at graduation. By increasing computer
access and digital literacy within the school system, the GILAS project aims to produce a more
qualified and highly skilled workforce.
To support the initiative, GILAS matched donations from local and foreign companies, local
governments, and legislators. Per the most recently released annual report, the public sector
2009 contribution added up to approximately US$ 500,860 in addition to the private sector’s
US$ 598,470 contribution. Overseas Filipino expatriates also made donations, mainly through
the Ayala Foundation USA, which totaled US$ 175,980. In total, donations that year equaled
US$ 1.3 million.
In 2010, the country’s Department of Education initiated its DepEd Internet Connectivity
Project (DICP) with the intention of connecting all public high schools to the Internet while
providing relevant monitoring through an annual allocation of US$ 1,200 per school. The
initiative complemented the GILAS program and leaders of both projects worked together to
reach their shared goal. DICP focused more on financing schools’ Internet connections while
GILAS looked more at the initial investment in the provision of ICT tools and training.
Within four years of its 2005 inception, the GILAS program connected 39% of the Philippines’
public high schools. As a result, more than 2 million students accessed the Internet and 11,621
teachers received training. By late 2012, the program had reached 3,349 schools31.
III.5. Critical success factors for increasing broadband penetration32 In the prior sections, three barriers were reviewed as being the dominant obstacles in
achieving broadband penetration: limited affordability, access in rural areas, and digital
literacy. In addition, policy approaches were discussed and best practices were presented as
examples on how to tackle these barriers. This section turns now to elaborate on the critical
success factors necessary to implement said approaches33.
31 Sour ss for Students, n.d. Web. >.
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32 This section is based on Katz, R. and Berry, T. (2014
Springer.
33 To reiterate, critical success factors are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well in order to achieve the
mission, objectives or goals for a particular project.