CABINET has approved recommendations put forward by the Ministry of Education, which will see the establishment of a Teachers Training Programme in ICT.
According to Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, speaking at the post-Cabinet media briefing on Wednesday at the Office of the President, this is to ensure that teachers in Guyana are fully equipped and technologically capable of dealing with advancements in Information Communication Technology (ICT)
“Understandably, this decision follows the implementation of the Government’s strategy of providing computer labs at all of the secondary schools in Guyana,” he explained.
The ICT programme will fall under the auspices of the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD), Dr. Luncheon noted.
As efforts continue to ensure that teachers are equipped with the basic IT skills to be imparted in the classrooms, over 3,000 teachers have been trained to date.
To support the massive training effort, Cabinet also released $40M last year for refurbishing of information technology labs in 50 secondary schools in Guyana.
The Ministry of Education, in its 2008-2013 Education Strategic Plan, aims to equip all secondary schools and 50 per cent of primary schools with computer laboratories by 2012.
The ICT initiative in Guyana is designed to harness the potential of computers and the internet to improve the quality of education.
This, in addition to President Jagdeo’s $1.8B One Laptop per Family (OLPF) initiative, will ensure equality of opportunity and exposure to ICT to all Guyanese.
Guyana’s OLPF is in keeping with the PPP/C administration’s efforts to ensure all Guyanese are equipped for the modern world, with services that include call centres, regional hosting opportunities, data for disaster recovery facilities, subscriber bandwidth services, telemedicine and distance learning.