Arroyo asks army to revive teaching programme

Manila: President Gloria Arroyo has ordered the armed forces to revive a programme sending teacher-soldiers to remote areas in a bid to bring education to children in remote communities in the country.

According to Arroyo, she had issued orders to Armed Forces chief Gen Alexander Yano to send soldiers qualified to give lessons in basic education subjects to far-flung communities.

The president noted that the move to send soldiers trained as teachers to remote communities had been made necessary after a programme to bring satellite-based education to children in the rural and remote areas was cancelled early this year.

Touted as one of the most ambitious and costly education projects in recent years, the 26.48 billion pesos (Dh2.23 billion) CyberEducation (CyberEd) programme of the Department of Education was among the several Chinese government-funded projects ordered cancelled by Arroyo due to supposed anomalies.

CyberEd, which is similar to the programme employed in China, was supposed to bring satellite-based education to children and raise the standard of public education.