[In my own opinion...]
"Happy new year!" I could hear this phrase louder than the firecrackers from my joyful and cheerful parents, aunts and cousins I spent with on the New Year's eve over a midnight meal here in Butuan City.
Welcoming the new year has always been great with our own families around, and when we recall all the blessings we received from last year. We would hope that the coming year will give us enough blessings just like last year.
Most of us start our year hoping the new year would be better, or equally good like last year. This is nothing different the way it has been from the previous years, but an exception to the 'few' - the students, teachers, and the community of the 320 public high schools nationwide who are recipients to the iSchools project that eagerly awaits to make a huge difference in their lives this new year.
The government, through the efforts of the
Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) under the Office of the President, and the State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) who lead the implementation in the different regions in the country will provide 21 computer sets, lcd projector, 2 sets of air-conditioning units and one-year free internet connection to the selected public high schools (PHS).
They are about to witness the information technology (IT) evolution as it unfolds before their very own eyes. 'Evolution', as what I prefer to call it as most of these public high schools transforms 'their computers' made from carton boxes to the genuine, high speed and advanced computer sets we have today.
The new year for the recipient schools could have been different, and could have been better already and more commemorative if the freebies promised have been awarded already December of last year as planned. And if only project implementations are perfect, these set of hardwares could have been at the doorsteps of these schools last end of October 2007, if we have to revisit the timeplan again.
The reason why PCs have not been delivered yet, I was told, was primarily due to the bidding procedures we had in the government, and those bidders who were involved. "It takes forever to do a healthy and fast bidding process", I heard a colleague in the office. This was really something different and really new to me having worked in a multinational company (in a private sector) and had implemented multimillion dollar and top business projects delivered on time, modesty aside.
It is true projects are sometimes extended for few days but not months! The basic rule we had was that you can only extend your timeline 10% maximum of the initial duration you have put in on your Microsoft project calendar (using the Microsoft project software).
With all the bureaucracy in the government as we have learned and accepted already, it would take more months for the PCs to be delivered keeping the excitement of the recipients to a stand still, if not plumetting thier hopes to nothing, and feeling like an investor looking at his stocks going down when the stock market is crashing.
"Baka maulit na naman yung nangyari sa supposed grant ng DTI", Mrs. Plaza, the school head of Lawigan National High School in Surigao del Sur stressed her frustrations over the delay. "They told us they'll give us computers but nothing happened since then."
This is just one of the school heads complaining and a lot more in other regions. As early as October to November in 2007, these schools were as prepared as the boy scouts, working overtime to put their laboratories complete as per the requirements set by the CICT. And by late November, the implementing SUC teams began to receive questions as to the delivery of the PCs.
While it was difficult to explain the delays to the PHS, we could only make a guarantee that this project will deliver its promise. We hope.
The ill-effects of the bidding process had kept us all hoping that the PCs can be delivered soon to the hopefulls. The poor undertakings and the setbacks we have in the process leading to the delays of the necessary services supposed to be delivered on time by the government should somehow be prevented in future projects, if not improved in the process. We cannot just sit down there and don't do anything to improve failures we have in the past.
We still want to see the recipients wear their wide smiles on their faces like when they first heard about the project during the community mobilization. We hope that the PCs will finally be at their schools soon.
And so we all hope.
