CONNECT A SCHOOL, CONNECT A COMMUNITY

Implementing a national school connectivity plan is often a long-term process.  It is essential for a school connectivity plan to have a timeframe, particularly given the multiple, inter-related variables that need to be taken into consideration.  Those variables include sequencing of schools to be connected, the status of the local Internet network, whether appropriate policies and regulations are in place and whether funding is available.   A realistic timetable helps to ensure that implementation goals are feasible and that the project remains on track, particularly if ongoing monitoring and accomplishment milestones are built into the timetable.   

Morocco’s Generalization of ICTs in Learning (GENIE) program was created in 2005 to enhance the availability of computer labs with Internet connectivity in public schools. The program envisaged a three year deployment timetable.⁴²  It is Interesting to note that a review of targets was built into the original program, and a revision of numbers was made two years after the start of the program (See Table 3-4, below).⁴³ 

Table ‎3‑4: Timetable for Morocco’s GENIE Program

Source: ANRT.

One goal of the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan for 2004-2010 was that every public high school in the country should have at least one computer (the level of computerization in high schools at the time the plan was launched was 80 per cent).⁴⁴  The Plan also included a provision for providing about 30 high schools a year with Internet connectivity.  The government decided that Internet connectivity in schools was proceeding too slowly, so it announced a priority connection program in May 2009. The Internet Connectivity Project mandates that all public high schools be connected to the Internet by the end of 2010.⁴⁵