Jamaican schools to go high-tech
Published:Thursday | April 7, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gov't, LIME, Flow to transform educational institutions
Arthur Hall, Senior Staff Reporter
The Government has started to roll out an ambitious multimillion-dollar project designed to place high-speed Internet in schools, post offices and public libraries across the island within 18 months.
"Any community, however remote, which has a public secondary or high school will be provided with facilities for Internet access," Daryl Vaz, the minister with responsibility for technology, announced yesterday.
"This project is anticipated to facilitate modern services such as videoconferencing and more efficient use of our teaching resources through the establishment of virtual classrooms.
"These resources will allow students to access stored subject matter lessons and to take online practice tests and examinations," Vaz added at the contract signing.
Under the five-year project, financed by the Universal Access Fund, two telecommunications providers, LIME and Flow, will be paid a total of $543 million over five years to roll out the Internet service at 283 institutions islandwide initially.
priorities covered
The two companies have also been contracted to provide the service with a 99.9 per cent availability and a target of no more than a cumulative total of 8.77 hours service degradation or downtime each year.
In signing the agreement, Garry Sinclair, managing director of LIME Jamaica, argued that the project covers two areas which have been priorities for his company - the infusion of information and communication technology (ICT) in education and the increasing access to this technology by the general population.
"While all of us at LIME are obviously excited about the commercial side of this project, the real satisfaction comes knowing that we will be part of an initiative that will be a critical catalyst in the development of our country," Sinclair said.
In the meantime, Michele English, president and chief operating officer of Flow, noted the high speed with which the broadband Internet provided to schools would operate.
"The impact of this immediately has seen Jamaica moving up the ICT ladder now into the top 15 countries in the world, ranking higher than places such as the US, the United Kingdom and Canada," English said.
"Many schools are currently utilising the power of this technology and we think that by putting together an integrated network with our partner that covers the whole of the country, it will significantly enhance the learning and the teaching environment that exist," added English.