Iloilo City — A curriculum which incorporates Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS) is now available for schools offering Computer Science
(CS), Information Technology (IT), and Information Management (IM)
major concentrations. At the national convention of the Philippine
Society of IT Educators (PSITE) in this city, the Philippine Open
Source Initiative (POSITIVE) launched the curricula for four courses
and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with PSITE involving
training and orientation on the curricula. The MoU signing ceremony
was formalized between PSITE National President Alex Ybasco and
POSITIVE Project Lead Joseph Paul Sianghio, and witnessed by Juliana
Hinterberger, Country Portfolio Manager of Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer
Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ, or German Technical Cooperation) and
Commissioner Emmanuel Lallana of the Commission on Information and
Communications Technology (CICT). Members of the PSITE Board of
Trustees also stood as witnesses.

The four courses, together with the FOSS components, are the following:

• IT Fundamentals — GNU/Linux, OpenOffice.org, the Graphics Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)
• Database Management — MySQL, PostgreSQL
• Operating Systems — GNU/Linux
• Web Development — GNU/Linux, Apache HTTP Server, Eclipse, PHP

The FOSS-oriented curricula are the product of two Champions Fora, the
first in Cebu and the other in Manila, and of two workshops, one in
Manila and the second in Cebu. The Champions Fora brought together
POSITIVE's industry partners to determine the skills they needed from
CS, IT, and IM graduates. Participants from POSITIVE's partner schools
then collaborated in the two workshops to design curricula and
courseware for the four core subjects. Those curricula employ
real-world FOSS applications to supplement the theoretical background
that serves as the foundation for the students' future in the IT
industry. POSITIVE's academic partners are the Angeles University
Foundation (AUF) in Angeles City, Asia-Pacific College (APC) in Makati
City, Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT) in Cebu City, the Computer
and Security Laboratory of the Department of Science and Technology
(DOST) Region 7 in Cebu City, Don Bosco Technical College (DBTC) in
Mandaluyong City, and the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute
of Technology (MSU-IIT) in Iligan City.

“POSITIVE wishes to acknowledge the hard work from our academic
partners in designing these courseware,” says Sianghio. “The
courseware once fully implemented is expected to improve the
employability of IT graduates and increase usage of Open Source by
companies in the Philippines.”

Under the MoU, POSITIVE will provide training and orientation to PSITE
members on the use of the curricula and the courseware. The courseware
include daily schedules of the lectures and laboratory work, as well
as auxiliary materials such as OpenOffice.org Impress presentations.
These are available to schools for free download by simply registering
online at the POSITIVE website (http://www.positive.ph). “POSITIVE's
next task is to brief the teachers on the use of the courseware,
specifically the Free/Open Source components,” says Sianghio. “To
employ the new courseware in time for the 2006-07 school year, PSITE
members and other registered schools will be advised of a faculty
training scheduled during the summer break in Metro Manila, Angeles
City, Cebu City, and Cagayan de Oro.”

POSITIVE is a joint project of the European Information Technology
Services Center (EITSC), Wireless Services Asia (WSA), and GTZ.

EITSC is an initiative of the European Chamber of Commerce of the
Philippines, GTZ, and the Asia Europe Foundation of the Philippines to
bridge the eSourcing requirements of Europe and the supply of IT and
IT-enabled services in the Philippines.

GTZ is a government-owned corporation for international cooperation
with worldwide operations. Present in more than 130 partner countries,
GTZ is supporting 2,700 development projects and programmes, chiefly
under commissions from the German Federal Government. GTZ's aim is to
improve the living conditions and perspectives of people on a
sustainable basis in developing and transition countries.

WSA is a closely held group of companies founded in 1999 with
subsidiaries in London, Helsinki, Singapore, and Manila. The business
focus of the group is to provide state-of-the-art entertainment
solutions addressing the needs of mobile users worldwide.

Further information about POSITIVE, GTZ, WSA, and EITSC:

• www.positive.ph
• www.gtz.de
• www.wsworldwide.com
• www.eitsc.com

Media contact:
Dominic Sabado
+63 2 845-1324
fax +63 2 845-1395
sabado@eitsc.com

E-Mail from Daniel Escasa