ANGARA PUSHES FOR CUTTING-EDGE TECH EDUCATION CENTER

Senator Edgardo J. Angara, Chair of the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) is pushing for the establishment of a center for cutting-edge technology education, in a bid to improve the country's technological preparedness.

Angara recently filed a bill to create a Center for Leading Edge Educational Technologies (CLEET), which will bring together the academic, technological and economic forces that can advance the educational promise of affordable technologies. It will be dedicated to the development of the appropriate educational materials for use in these emerging technologies.

Angara said that, "To be able to do this, we need to train people to be technology-savvy experts and acquire a critical mass of equipment and software, centrally located in a high technology facility."

The CLEET will be a partnership of the government and the private sector. Its thrust would be education and information technology combined, but its operations should have a heavier emphasis on the information technology aspects.

Angara added that, "the CLEET will be created to focus the collective resources of government and the private sector into a national force for innovation in education."

"The goal is to assemble a high- technology facility for accessing leading edge hardware, software and materials and a core of leadership to determine these priorities and to bring technology to bear on them as appropriate," he said.

Angara said that government must prioritize more education projects in order to make the country more globally competitive.