School’s in: Oracle Academy enters the Philippines

The Department of Education of the Philippines announced a very big deal on Sunday, releasing details of its newly signed memorandum of agreement with Oracle Philippines. The memorandum of agreement is worth US $380 million in grant value and, under terms of the contract, will incorporate the Oracle Academy into its secondary education curriculum.

The agreement was announced as “the start of Oracle and the department of education’s alliance to integrate technology into the school program, which supports the government’s 10-point agenda to provide quality education for all in the Philippines.”

The Oracle Academy partnership with the department of education carries a mission statement to raise the awareness and standards of information technology and technical skills in the Philippines. Education Undersecretary Fe A. Hidalgo touted the agreement as “a significant step to help expand the opportunities available to teachers, students and the general community … [this will] help develop new opportunities that will help transform this country.”

The agreement will give further push to already extant Oracle Philippines programs and educational initiatives in the country such as Think.com and Thinkquest for primary and secondary students, and the Oracle Academic Initiative for universities. The Oracle Academy is a partnership between Oracle and secondary schools, designed to equip students with database, SQL, Java programming, and other business skills.

Oracle provides teacher training, professional development, support, curriculum materials, and online learning. Under terms of the agreement, the Oracle Academy program will be rolled out in two phases. Phase One is a training for 60 teachers from 30 schools across the Philippines. Phase Two of the program will prepare another 1,500 additional teachers from 750 schools across the country.

The Oracle Academy currently serves 6,675 students in 267 schools in countries across the Asia Pacific region, including in China, Hong Kong and India. Through other education initiatives, Oracle provides access to Oracle technologies and resources for over 200,000 students in the region.