Tonight, high school students from the Stann Creek Ecumenical High School are celebrating a big win in a Web Development competition organized by the Public Utilities Commission.
The PUC may be seen as the stern and stodgy regulator of Belize's utilities - but the agency also encourages innovation in Information Technology.
Today at the Biltmore, the PUC's judges brought all the schools together for a final competition, where they had to demonstrate that their website was the strongest of all the entries. Here's the story:
For the past eight years, the Public Utilities Commission has attempted to encourage a culture of Information Technology in Belize's education system. They've provided the tools and the training so that high school students can design and build their own mobile applications for smartphones. They even made massive investments in Raspberry Pi computers so that high schoolers can tinker, innovate, invent, and learn how to program and code.
This year, the PUC challenged high schoolers to learn how to code for the purpose of building their own website.
Suzette Tillett - Communications Director, PUC
"This competition really started in the early summer of this year. It replaces the usual gesture that we do in terms of technology and building technology. Earlier this year, in the summer, we started by training the teachers and having them get web development training. It was very intense. They took about a month, and when they went back to their respective high schools, they shared this knowledge with their students. They did a couple more studies and sessions during September, and now, we're here where the task for them at hand was to build a website of their own for the school. Today, the culmination of everything is to judge this website. And so, what you'll be seeing here is the presentations done by the students themselves, where the judges will ask them in-depth questions on the backend of their website, and then based on that, we'll determine a winner."
At today's judging competition, the students from the eight schools countrywide that participated in the competition had to walk the judges through the websites that they built from scratch using the web design programming language. One school designed a website for online tutoring between students and teachers. Another created a webpage for students to provide mental health counseling to their peers. And yet another school designed a crime database.
When it was their opportunity to describe the functions of their website entries, they had to justify their usefulness and the coding tools used. Some of the presenters were so conversant with the topic that you'd think that they had a few years of experience.
Independence High School Student
"We created this app using third-party software called quick admin panel, which is log-in, registration, and menus. Laravel and regional studio code were used to develop the front end of the web. Larvel uses programming languages like CSS, HTML, and PHP."
Teachers confirmed that they had to work very hard to train their students in the basics of website design and construction.
Ray Liang - IT Teacher, Belize High School
"There were definitely some students that had some trouble getting into it. As with any craft in life, you tend to have some that are naturally talented in it, but there are those who are hard-working and get it eventually."
Edward Nicasio - It Teacher, Stann Creek Ecumenical High
"I faced a lot. I had sleepless nights. Sometimes, I would go into meetings with them in Google Meets because the school only permits us until 5 o'clock. So, we meet Monday to Friday from three-thirty to five o'clock because we had some senior students, and then, on Saturdays' we were permitted only four hours from eight-thirty to twelve o'clock to finish our project."
Ray Liang
"I see a lot of young people who are intimidated because it's a lot of information overload at the beginning. But, the great part of how I teach my classes is I ease them into it. I try to teach them the basics first, as in any skill in life. We have to start with the basics and build a very good foundation."
That foundation was tested by the judges, who quizzed the students on their website's backend coding. It was sort of a combination between a group project and a final examination, with the stakes heightened. That's because the schools were competing for 10 thousand dollars in computer equipment for their educational institution.
Suzette Tillett - Communications Director, PUC
"Because it is an entire school, and we know schools have computer labs, the labs are always in need of something. So, the big prize is we're offering three complete sets of computers, printers, ink, and everything you'd need. Three complete sets. That's what the winner will take away. The second prize winner will take away two sets, and the third prize winner will take away one set."
Those are the short-term gains that the winners will get. The PUC's long game is to continue fostering that culture of IT.
Suzette Tillett - Communications Director, PUC
"The pandemic taught us that everything is going digital. Everything is going toward that type of technology. So, instilling this in our school children kinda brings that up, and we're hoping that from these types of initiatives, students will branch off more to in-depth IT. We'll see more inventors in Belize. We'll see more things coming out of our Belizean students."
Edward Nicasio
"I notice that my students do want to pursue programming full-time, actually. What inspired them mostly - and I must big up Belize High School for that - was that we made it on the globe for the robotics competition. Globally, you're talking about over 160 countries, and we came in first. So, that inspired them. We do have talent in Belize. These students are capable of executing what we need to do. I believe this competition is excellent."
Eight schools participated in today's competition: Kings College, Belize High School, Ocean Academy, Belmopan Methodist High School, Escuela Secundaria Tecnica Mexico, Independence High School, Stann Creek Ecumenical College, and Julian Cho High School.
As mentioned earlier, the judges selected Stann Creek Ecumenical College as the first place winner. They will receive around ten thousand dollars in computer equipment for their school. Second place went to Independence High School, which will receive between six to seven thousand dollars in computer equipment. Finally, Belize High School won third place. They will receive three thousand dollars in computer equipment.
