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| Sunday, 3 July 2005 |
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ICT literacy rate should be developed through school system by Hiran H. Senewiratne Sri Lanka's ICT literacy rate should be developed through the school system, the Secretary to the Prime Minister Lalith Weeratunge said. Sri Lanka's normal literacy rate is more than 91 per cent, but the ICT literacy rate is less than 10 per cent, which is inadequate to achieve rapid economic growth, Weeratunge told a media conference to mark the launch of the National e-Governance Centre of Excellence by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse recently. He said that in certain districts in the country, ICT literacy is extremely poor. By introducing ICT to the school curriculum we could increase the literacy rate considerably. Weeratunge said that with the increase in the ICT literacy in the country, we could promote the e-Governance concept in a big way. The Centre will play a pivotal role in realising an e-Government and deploying 640 Chief Innovative Officers to every Ministry, Provincial Council, government department and agency across the country. This will benefit the public when they transact with government offices, he said. ICTA, under the leadership of the Prime Minster's office, will take the running of the Centre under its wing and synchronise the Centre's activities including skills development with its e-Sri Lanka program from the re-engineering government and ICT Human Resource Capacity Building, he said. The aim of e-Sri Lanka is to improve the public service and governance with the use of ICT, improve ICT infrastructure to enhance the quality of life through providing affordable access and opportunity on it, to enhance the quality of life and to take ICT to rural areas to apply it for rural and socio-economic development. The Centre will be the best showcase to successfully implement the e-Governance solution. It will initially set up the rural telecommunication network in the deep South and North and help global access via the internet. The setting up of 1,000 tele-centres covering all Divisional Secretariats and Government information centres are some of the plans of the Centre, the Secretary to the Prime Minister said. Senior Vice President-Asia Pacific Division, Oracle Corporation Keith Budge said that the Government has demonstrated exemplary leadership in setting up the national e-Governance Centre of Excellence. He said that through the Centre the people of Sri Lanka will benefit from proven IT solutions in the area of e-Government. Budge said that they look forward to working with the Government of Sri Lanka and their partners to apply IT in the Sri Lankan context to enhance Government-to Citizen and Government-to-Business interaction. The Centre will conduct theme based workshops on e-governance with
experts from Sri Lanka and abroad. |
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Editorial | Security | Produced by Lake House |
