Teachers to go IT savvy

Dulshani Gunawardena

*Computer training for 75 percent teachers

*Fully fledged training centre at Ruwanpura

The Education Ministry is implementing a special crash program to develop Information Technology in government schools with special emphasis to train at least 75 percent of the teachers in computer technology or literacy at least, Education Minister Sunil Premjayanth said.

Ruwanpura Teacher Training Institute has been converted to a fully fledged ICT training college to train 220 IT teachers annually, Minister Premajayanth said.

Two years back, a survey conducted by authorities found that only 25 percent of teachers in government schools were computer literate. Training provided to teachers has achieved considerable results, the minister noted.

Year 2009 was declared the Year of English and IT by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Education Ministry has taken several steps to develop IT literacy in the country, starting at grassroots level using the maximum resources available. The ministry had trained 62,000 teachers in the past two years and 15,000 among them had received international diplomas. Currently 100,000 teachers are being trained in weekend sessions, the minister said.

Explaining the progress, Minister Premajayanth said a school IT development program is also being conducted with 3,500 computer labs in schools islandwide while another 500 IT labs are currently under construction. The targeted number of school computer labs of 5,000 would be ready by 2010 end. The ministry has also taken steps to integrate IT at the GCE O level and by 2,010 it would be a GCE A Level subject, he said.

“Our children have the ability to go with the competitive international trends and challenges. They should be provided with the best resources and encouraged to achieve higher standards,” he said.