–gov’t committed to bringing connectivity to rural communities, President Ali says

PRESIDENT Dr. Irfaan Ali has said that digitalisation and electronic education (e-education) will help to bridge the divide to provide more equitable access, and as such, the government will continue to bring connectivity to rural communities.

The head of state made these remarks during a recent visit to the Santa Aratack community, where he noted that the government will continue to invest in education.

He said that the government will invest in teachers and teachers’ education, as they want to ensure that teachers, wherever they are, are trained.

“All our teachers must have the opportunity to become trained teachers, and you know your salary will increase as soon as you become a trained teacher,” he told the gathering.

But more than that, he indicated that if those teachers are trained, the government wants to ensure that each trained teacher also becomes a trained graduate, and as such they must be able to do a degree, master’s degree and even a PhD.

It was then that he indicated that while residents had complained of connectivity issues, a request was immediately made for better connectivity. Later that day, the request which the residents made for Wi-Fi connection was followed through with, and residents received the service.

President Ali added, “We want our nurses, we want our technicians, we want our children to be in a continuous learning environment.”

However, as he spoke on the development of e-education across the country, he indicated that he had recently received a proposal and assured that it will be done. He noted that this will help to streamline services and deploy crucial skills across the country.

“Digitisation, digital education, and e-education help to shorten the divide; it helps to bridge the divide so that we can have more equitable access,” he added.

He said: “Education also involves skillset; skillset among teachers’; skillset among children, and we have to utilise those skillsets for all the people of our country.”

Earlier this year, President Ali had highlighted that the government had agreed to work on a programme to make the country’s entire education infrastructure modules, learning curriculum and teaching aids with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and further move same to a fully electronic platform.