MANILA, Philippines - Two Taguig City high school students bagged top awards in a nationwide information technology (IT) competition held recently in Quezon City.
Michael Angelo of the Taguig Science High School clinched the top spot in the Audio-Visual Presentation using Flash Animation Category at the national finals of the 2012 Battle of the ICT Wizards.
Dan Cecilio Chua of the Gen. Ricardo R. Papa Sr. Memorial High School-Main landed third in the Advanced Web Design in the Dreamweaver/xHTML Category.
The contest was organized by the Singapore-based Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) Pte. Ltd.
Angelo and Chua received P10,000 and P2,000 cash, respectively, plus trophies and scholarships from Informatics, a computer school.
Twelve public high school students from Taguig City, including Angelo and Chua, competed in the national finals of the Battle of the ICT Wizards. Thirty contestants per category from 30 schools nationwide battled for the top prizes.
Taguig City Mayor Lani Cayetano congratulated the students, saying the investment made by the city government through the Cyber Education Program (CEP), backed by a competitive sci-tech curriculum in public elementary and secondary schools, is evidently paying off.
The Cyber Education Program is run by the Taguig City government in cooperation with CAL Pte. Ltd. of Singapore.
“We are truly proud of the achievements of our students and in the fact that the public schools of Taguig can now compete and come out with flying colors at the national level,†Cayetano said.
“I’m glad to say that this is a proof that the quality of public education in Taguig has indeed become at par with, if not better than, that of private schools. This also indicates that the Taguig Cyber Education Program really works,†she added.
The Cyber Ed Program was launched before the start of school year 2012-2013. Taguig is the only local government in the country providing public schools with CAL-based training, normally offered only in private schools.
Under the program, high school students are trained in any of three IT skills – Digital Arts, Programming and Web Design. A pre-assessment is made to determine the student’s aptitude and the IT training best suited to them.
All those who complete the training receive a certificate of completion. CAL can also help them get a certificate from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) since the Cyber Education Program meets TESDA requirements. x