By YOLANDA Z. SOTELO

ALAMINOS city’s public high schools and elementary schools join the cyberspace through the wireless Internet connectivity project that the city government will provide to them for free, the first of its kind in the country.

Mayor Hernani Braganza has signed a memorandum of agreement with the Trends and Technologies, Inc. for the establishment of an infrastructure system that will provide wireless Internet connection and access for the 42 public schools in the city.

The first phase will cover the seven high schools and four elementary schools and will have a project cost of P7 million. It will have its Hub (center) at the city hall.

Declaring that his Administration is committed to quality education for its residents, Braganza said, “Education is a right, not a privilege. And quality education will free you from the greatest threat to the country – poverty.”

He added that the project would further improve the education in the city. “We are improving our educational facilities to further push our children to aspire for greater heights.”

Each of the 11 identified schools have will given five to 15 computers, he said, but noted that he would have certain web sites, especially pornographic ones, blocked so that these cannot be accessed by the students.

“There are two kinds of information that can be acquired from the Internet — the right ones and the crazy ones. We will make sure the student access only the right information,” he said.

Dr. Anastacio Domingo, assistant chief of the secondary schools division in the Ilocos, hoped the project, the first of its kind in the country, would be replicated in other towns and cities in the region,

Renan Velonza, head of the enterprise business group of the Trends and Technologies, said the project paves the access of the school children to the information highway.

“This is the first time in the country that a local government is establishing wireless Internet connection to public schools, for free,” he said.

He explained that putting up infrastructure for the wireless Internet connection takes only about 60 days, much faster than putting up infrastructure for wired connectivity which takes about six months.

The school children will have access to Internet in two months time, he said.
The teachers and the school children who witnessed the MOA signing, were elated by the project. Ryan Christopher Eden, a student of the Alaminos City National High School, narrated how Internet helped him win national academic contests “because most of the questions asked in the contests can be found in the Internet.”

He also relied on the Internet for his research papers, reports and assignments, he said.

Another student, Margilou Orange Humilde, said she was happy that Alaminos is up to date with modern technology, “especially because everything in the world has something to do with computer.”

She said the project wouldl help a lot of students as they can easily do their research and will make it easier for them to do academic and extracurricular activities at the same time.

“We can also help in the tourism program by inviting people from different places to come to the city,” she said.

Braganza said the project has six major components. These are computer literacy training to public schools, wireless technology infrastructure with Internet connectivity, establishment of a computer classroom module, hiring of computer teachers, development of public elementary information system and training of out-of-school youths and unemployed professionals in the villages.

Velonza, a native of Mabini town who spent his high school days in the city, said it was a big honor for his company to have been given a special opportunity to be part of the program to bring advance technology to the city.