The Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture is now equipping pilot schools for the planned programme to have every school in the island connected to the worldwide computer information system, the Internet.

According to an officer in the Ministry, 50 schools are each to be equipped with a personal computer and hooked up to the Internet, along with 30 schools which have already received computers through the Jamaica Computer Society Education Foundation. The first ten schools should have their computers by the end of this month, and by January 1, all pilot schools should be equipped, the official said. The Ministry is still working towards a previously announced goal of having all schools "on-line" by mid-1998.

Primary and secondary level schools are involved in the programme, which was one of the highlights of the last Sectoral Debate. In his presentation, Education Minister Burchell Whiteman, repeated a commitment made earlier by the Prime Minister, to provide Internet access to primary schools by 1998. He said Government would be spending $35 million on the programme, intended to link schools with each other, the Ministry and the wider world.

The programme is being carried out alongside other computerisation projects already in place in some schools, the Ministry source stated. These programmes include computer laboratories started by schools with the help of private donations and laboratories set up under the Jamaica Computer Society's Education Foundation.

According to the Ministry official, the programme will begin with teacher training. She said that teachers will initially be trained to use the computer for administrative and curriculum support. A number of teachers and education officers have already completed the first phase of the training, which has equipped them with basic skills to utilise the Internet.

"They are now able to go on the Internet. They will go to specific educational web-sites to search for material to use within their schools. They will also be going to Internet-based projects for students.that can enable collaboration between Jamaican students and students in other countries."

The education officer said that computers will be used at the primary level to support curriculum delivery and reinforcement and to provide resource material for teachers. She added that while most secondary-level schools use computers to prepare students for the CXC information technology examinations, the Ministry was examining ways to encourage them to utilise computers more fully.

She also pointed out that although schools without access to phone lines, would be unable to use the Internet directly, they would be supplied with material downloaded from the Internet on software. According to the officer, many schools which already have computers are not fully utilising the equipment because there is no fully developed curriculum in place to guide them.

"Our ultimate goal is to encourage teachers to develop software, to go into authoring software for the local education system. As we produce our own material, the costs to us will be greatly reduced."