e-village to broad-base

Vishmi Wijeratne

Officials of the E- village forum discussing their next initiatives

An e-village programme which has been at first a pilot project by the Ministry of Education and guided by the Presidential Secretariat, funded by Intel and many other private organisations, now hopes to reach new heights by the end of year 2013. While the aim of the project is to bring IT literacy to the village and empowering e technology among villages, the goal is set to use Information Technology to broaden the English knowledge of students and teachers.

“We are planning ahead with the aid of the British Council, to enable a system where students and teachers could increase their knowledge of English through the net. This would be available for students in the near future, “ Country Business Manager for Intel EM Ltd, India, De Zoyza said.

Meanwhile, Additional Secretary to the President, Anura Dissanayake, addressing the audience at the e-village forum, said that by December 2013, they hoped to educate and encourage teachers and students in the use of IT as a means of communication.

”There would be 1 ml email accounts activated by students and teachers by the end of 2013.

In addition, we have 97 education institutions, one in each region to train school drop outs in their future endeavours in the job market, “ he said. e- village would also provide students IT knowledge in 1500 IT educating institutes throughout the country during the evenings on week days and students in villages too would receive the same facility during weekends,” he said. They have also installed software for many subjects including science, English and Social studies. Further information could be obtained from www.schoolnet.lk