Transmission firm National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is ramping up initiatives that will enhance computer literacy among school children via its “TECHKID” program that sets up “computer laboratory projects” at its host-communities.
Through that endeavor, the company is targeting to plug that ‘digital divide’ -- which is highly perceptible between those that are living in urban areas versus the school children who are in the rural or far-flung domains of the country.
“NGCP continues to provide more opportunities for students around the country to advance their level of computer proficiency through its TECHKID,” the company said.
NGCP is the sole operator of the country’s power transmission network, hence, its host communities stretch from the northernmost tip and up to the farthest southern extremity of the country – and that has been giving it vast social responsibility then to help varied communities through all corners of the Philippines.
On its computer literacy drive that kicked off in 2017, the transmission firm indicated that it already turned over 38 computer laboratories to schools in its host communities nationwide.
The latest school-beneficiaries of the NGCP’s TECHKID program, so far, had been: the Maria Z. Bayya Elementary School in New Carmen, Tacurong City; Sultan Kudarat and Binugao Central Elementary School in Toril District, Davao City; and the company has also completed the construction of a similar facility for Central Mindanao University in Maramag, Bukidnon.
The transmission firm explained that the program intends “to address the existing digital divide, particularly in underserved and remote communities where NGCP operates.”
The company qualified that in remote areas, in particular, “many students have limited access to the internet or lack hands-on experience with a computer’s hardware.”
Given such deficient access of schoolchildren to digital technologies then, NGCP noted that “this hinders the development of their computer proficiency, which is increasingly crucial today given the shift to online and modular modes of instruction.”
Apart from reinforcing the operations and expanding the power transmission assets and facilities, NGCP also has a critical role to empower and address the socio-economic needs of its host-communities because they stand as its partner in safeguarding the ‘power transmission highway’ of the country.