Free Kindle Ebook Readers to 17M Filipino Students
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
