Increasing computer awareness

The establishment of 2,200 computer laboratories at schools throughout the island has been earmarked by the Ministry of Education as one of its most important projects.

It has also made arrangements for 50,000 teachers to undergo training on Information Technology so that they in turn would have the knowledge to help students. Forty thousand teachers have already been trained to serve at 200 Information Technology Centres.

It’s the intention of the Government to upgrade the island population’s computer awareness ratio to 60 per cent by 2010. This was 33 per cent last year, which is a vast improvement from the nine per cent figure reported in 2005.

The Ministry is also planning to integrate 1,100 schools to the SchoolNet network, besides taking initiatives to introduce IT as a subject for the Advanced Level examination, from 2009.

A College of Education is to be established specially for training the teachers for the IT sector.