Dictionaries for improving basic education?

From MB.com:

While many think that the future of Philippine education lies in new technologies like computers and the internet, New York-based Filipina Nina Patawaran believes a solution can be found in something as simple as a dictionary.

Patawaran, a former banker, is the founder of The Philippines Dictionary Project, a grass-roots movement with the goal of distributing well-designed children’s illustrated dictionaries to public elementary schools across the entire Philippines in a manner that promotes transparency, accountability and sustainability.

I find some sense into this. And the ownership model is truly innovative:

Rather than giving the books directly to the beneficiary schools, the project hands over the dictionaries to “dictionary bank” schools like Silliman University, which in turn lend out the books to the public schools that need it for a nominal fee. The fee is used to cover operational expenses.

“Ownership is never transferred to the public elementary school. This is critical. If ownership is transferred, no one could ever go back and rescind the donation,” explains Patawaran. “It is a different matter if ownership is retained by Silliman. When books are lent, the loan can be cancelled and the books withdrawn in the event of abuse.”

Apparently the project was launched just last year.

Here's a write-up on this from Ayala Foundation USA. (There's a picture there which shows a beautiful Nina Patawaran.) Quote:

As a reaction to the arrival of dictionaries for 28 schools, the Department of Education Negros Oriental Provincial Division designed a program to train teachers how to build students' pre-dictionary skills. This is but one of the positive changes triggered by the project!

It's good practice to not just give them the tools, but give them the skills to use tools.

Another write-up from the same site. (More pictures of Nina.)

From GoodNewsPilipinas.com:

In a country where more than half of the population can’t live a day without texting, and thousands more are Facebook addicts- finding books in the dustbin of Filipino households will surely come as no surprise.

Of course, it will be easy to just give up on encouraging kids to read, when books are not as accessible as the more costly television sets, celphones and internet.*

But for retired banker Nina Patawaran, there just can never be any excuse for kids not to read and learn.

Now you know that The Philippine Dictionary Project is not a project to make dictionaries of Philippine languages.

(Unrelated project.)

(*But: "But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching television, to read and write.")