Project Background
The PCPS Project is the Department's response to the compellig challenges posed by the fast emerging Knowledge Economy. It aims to enhance the Filipino youth's information technology (IT) skills as the country's future knowledge workers and promote IT culture in Philippine classrooms as an avenue to develop Filipinos' skills to be at par with global standards.

The Philippines is recognized for its competitive advantage in the IT services sector, being the second largest producer of computer services in Asia, next to India. To maintain this advantage and provide a continuous pool of manpower in the sector, the DTI, through the PCPS project, promotes the need to incorporate IT in the basic levels of education by providing computers to public high schools.

The project's funding came from the Government of Japan through its Non-Project Grant Assistance Countervalue Funds (NPGA-CVF).

PCPS Phase 1 (2001-2003)
In 2001, the Government of Japan, through its NPGA-CVF, awarded P600M grant to the Philippine government for the PCPS1. The completion of PCPS1 provided 19,920 computers to 996 recipient schools, at 20 computers per school, nationwide. Seventy-eight percent of the recipient schools came from the rural areas, addressing yet another issue on the technological gap between urban and rural areas.

PCPS1 also trained 24,389 Science and Math teachers on the use of computer technologies and the Internet as tools for teaching and learning and on basic computer operation, troubleshooting and preventive maintenance. Over 500,000 high school students were able to have hands-on computer access for an average of 9.22 hours per week under their one-year computer education curriculum.

PCPS Phase 2 (2003-2005)
The goal of the PCPS2 was to intensify the impact of PCPS1. With PCPS2, another 12,320 computers were delivered to an additional 1,232 public high schools, at 10 computers per school, nationwide. It also trained an additional 13,343 high school teachers on basic computeroperation and integration of computers in classroom instruction.

As an added component, PCPS2 also provided 250 local government units (LGUs) nationwide with computer servers and networking facilities for the automation of their key administrative systems such as Real Property Tax Assessment and Billing System, Business Permits and Licensing System, and Treasury Operations and Management System.

Computers were also delivered to the DTI regional and provincial offices to help the Department effectively manage and monitor the PCPS project and to carry out effectively its web-enabled frontline activities like the Business Name Registration System (BNRS).

PCPS Phase 3 (2005-2007)
The successful implementation of the project's first two phases has attracted the attention of more schools who wanted to avail of computers. This demand prompted the DTI to submit a proposal for the PCPS Phase 3 (PCPS3) to the Government of Japan. The objective of PCPS3 is to reduce, if not completely erase, the computer backlog in public high schools in the country.

The first two phases of the project has significantly reduced the backlog from 76% to 55% which, in turn, was reduced to 37% after the completion of PCPS3.
  

With PCPS4, each recipient school was provided 11 computers to comply with the computer laboratory configuration prescribed by the Department of Education (DepEd). Also added to the computer package are 11 units of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to address the problem of fluctuating electricity supply in some locations in the country.

For PCPS4, DTI has distributed a total of 13,200 computers to 1,200 recipient schools nationwide.


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