Globe embarks on GFS program in ARMM campuses

COTABATO CITY --- The Globe Telecom Incorporated and the education department launched here Thursday a partnership on internet learning interventions to address illiteracy in southern provinces.Globe’s Maria Yolanda Crisanto and lawyer Rasol Mitmug, Jr., regional education secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, led the symbolic launching of the Global Filipino Schools (GFS) Program at the ARMM capitol here on Thursday morning.Crisanto is Globe’s senior vice president for communications.The kickoff rite for the joint venture was held along with the day-long food festival in the five model ethnic Yakan, Tausug, Meranao, Maguindanao and Samah villages inside the 32-hectare ARMM compound southeast of Cotabato City.Crisanto said the GFS is a long-term 21stcentury education approach intended to boost the quality of education in public schools not just in the autonomous region but in other provinces outside as well.The program provides free internet to schools for learners and teachers to have access to online learning and other information facets.The GFS package for ARMM shall include proficiency trainings for public school teachers on use of telecommunications technology to improve the quality of education in the region. With ARMM on board, we are very happy to say thatthe GFS project is already in the 17thof the 17 regions in the Philippines, Crisanto said on Thursday.She said Globe is committed to help the ARMM government push its education thrusts forward.Mitmug said the DepEd-ARMM is grateful to the telecommunications giant Globe for reaching out to the autonomous region. The administration of Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman is thankful to Globe for coming in to help, Mitmug said.He said the Hataman administration has spent in the past five years big amounts of infrastructure funds for school buildings in remote barrios and for concrete roads along campuses to provide children easy access to learning institution. This expansion of GFS program of Globe into the autonomous region is a big vote of confidence for the present ARMM administration, Mitmug said.