So did that title catch your attention? Hahaha! It sure did get mine when I heard it from Senator Dick Gordon during the presidential debate held at DLSU. In one of his answers, Gordon explained that one of his plans was to give away FREE Kindles to all public school students. Basically he wanted to put the entire curriculum of Grade School to College. This is by far one of the boldest statements I’ve heard from a politician about how he plans to uplift the insane state of our education system.
To fund the project, Gordon lays out several options and back-up plans available:
He also mapped out a plan to fund a $1.7 billion (or P85 billion) project to give 17 million students a Kindle
To fund the Kindle project, Gordon said plans to cut down on corruption, which amounts to about 300 billion pesos.If this does not work, he plans to improve mining, an industry reportedly worth $1-trillion, to give additional funding for the free e-book reader project.
If both do not work, Gordon said the quickest way to raise funds is through a “text for education” campaign, where P0.50 from every 2 billion text messages will be used to fund teacher’s salaries and the Kindle project.
Gordon strikes me as a politician who really has a strong will and is the type that will get things done. I know he is tactless and gets angry fast but the programs he’s presenting are actually quite fascinating. I mean come on… I never imagined a candidate would actually present the idea of giving away free Kindles. Hahaha!
The only problem with this program is that due to the poverty, the Kindles will probably get sold or stolen. Hopefully there’s a contingency for this.
Again, let me just say that I’m not voting for Gordon just yet. It’s just that he really got a lot of pogi points for his performance during the debate.
Author’s Note: This is re-posted from New Media Philippines
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jab on January 31, 2010
that’s a very ambitious project… if he becomes president… Gordon’s a great guy that’s not afraid to make the hard decisions which makes him so unpopular to the masses…
kjaonline on January 31, 2010
Okay yan ah.. I want a kindle myself..
But why won’t he start by increasing the pay of teachers, improving government support towards DECS, DOST, CHED etc2x and fixing and increasing the number of schools..
Acura on January 31, 2010
Okaayy… so a free ebook reader for the 17M Filipino students. Does that mean that our government would also shoulder the purchase of the ACTUAL EBOOKS that would be loaded for each Kindle.
In my opinion, if we do have the money (a “sustainable” $1.7 billion annually), we need to start from the basics… school infrastructure, teacher salaries and TEXTBOOKS (which are rarely provided as in ebook format…thus rendering the Kindle virtually useless)
fr0stbyte on January 31, 2010
With a Kindle comes the necessity of electricity. You have to charge it right? Then there’s the inappropriateness of the program.. There are far more pressing matters to attend to and I think he should start from the basics.. Increasing the salaries of the teachers, clamping down on the rampant corruption that plagues our government and lack of contingency plans for natural disasters.. These problems will take a looooooong time to solve.. It’s not like people will just change what they have doing for a decade or two.
Poche on January 31, 2010
300 dollars ang isang kindle.
sabi nga ni GIBO sa isang presidential forums “madaling magsalita pero mahirap ipatupad” hehe.
CID on January 31, 2010
free kindle? = incoming corruption lol
the hatter on February 4, 2010
i don’t know… maybe giving away kindles to public school students is not such a bad idea… instead of purchasing/getting books every year they would just get/download an ebook version and they’re good to go. the probability of the kindles being sold/stolen/pawned is very high though and it could pose to be a very big problem… i’m not really sure if this is a very effective use of the government’s money but gordon still gets my vote.