GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/22 May) – The city government has distributed a total of 245 personal computer units to various local high public schools and community institutions in the last 10 months through its enhanced computerization program.
City Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio said the move was part of the continuing implementation of the local government’s “re-engineered” SHEEP-computer literacy program (CLP), which it earlier adopted as among its priority socio-economic development initiatives.
SHEEP stands for Social Transformation, Human Empowerment, Economic Diversification, Environment Security and Regeneration and Participatory Governance and Transparency, which are the city’s government’s main development thrusts.
Custodio said the PC distribution started in July last year, with three public high schools receiving 40 units.
In February, the mayor said they released 35 additional PCs for the computer laboratories of two public high schools.
Last April 16, she said they distributed 145 more PCs to complement the expansion of the computer laboratories of nine other public high schools in the area.
For this month, she said they released five computer units to the city’s Office of Senior Citizens Affairs and 10 units each to the city’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) center and another public high school.
“We’re currently processing the purchase of additional 500 computer units for the remaining schools that have not yet received their computers. All these are due for delivery within the year,” Custodio said in a statement.
The city government earlier introduced a “re-engineered” SHEEP-CLP in a bid to mainstream information and communication technology (ICT) education among residents within the city’s 26 barangays.
Through its partnership with the Department of Education (DepEd), the local government introduced a series of ICT trainings and seminars featuring various computer-based technologies and skills in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.
“These trainings are mainly aimed at getting our students ready for the next-generation industries that will hopefully be locating here,” Custodio earlier said.
In April, the local government launched a month-long ICT summer training program dubbed “Summer 2012 Multimedia Boot Camp.”
The boot camp included sessions on call center training, AutoCAD drafting and design, computer animation, digital caricature and comic strip making, web and video blogging, basic computer programming, audio-visual presentation making, digital recording for bands,
electronic music integration and “Facebook for senior netizens.”
Last week, 111 public high school graduates, out-of-school-youths and unemployed college graduates completed a training program on Business English Proficiency for call centers through the SHEEP-CLP.
SHEEP-CLP personnel are currently working for possible job placements for the 111 graduates in locally-based call centers Sutherland Global Services and Six Eleven Global Services. (Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews)