THE Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) has made significant progress in integrating Information Communication Technology (ICT) into education.
This was highlighted at a one-day reflection workshop on ICT in Education on Monday at the MEHRD conference room.
Organised by MEHRD in partnership with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and facilitated by Technical Advisor Andrew Erbs, the workshop was conducted to review achievements under the 2019-2023 ICT in Education Master Plan.
MEHRD ICT Manager Peter Suiramo, in his address, highlighted that there has been progress in bringing ICT into education over the past five years.
“Technology has become a bigger part of how our teachers teach, how our students learn, and how our schools operate,” Mr Suiramo said.
He said numbers of schools have already connected to SIG Connect and other services.
Besides that, Mr Suiramo said there are few projects implemented by MEHRD and one of them is the Solar Computers for 10 schools from each province. This particular project is now benefiting the recipient schools by providing internet access to their schools.
He said MEHRD has supported ten national secondary schools that offer Form 7 and they are already connected to the internet.
Mr Suiramo added that this same support will be rolled over to other schools in the provinces.
He said MEHRD also held discussions with Tower Projects Solomons to provide affordable internet service to remote schools.
The the achievements and progress made over the past five years include:
- Numbers of schools connected to SIG Connect and other services
- Progress of Litehaus computer labs rollout
- Infrastructure modernization at ICTSU for iResource and OpenEmis
- Expansion of the Tower Project to provide internet access to remote areas
- Teacher digital literacy programs were introduced in select schools.
- PeP upskilling teachers and school leaders in digital teaching, integration of ICT competency standards into some training
- Use of Moodle at SINU for pre-service teacher training.
The ICT in Education Master Plan was developed in 2019 to enhance ICT infrastructure and connectivity to facilitate equitable access to learning, create and effective teaching and learning environment supported by quality digital resources and pedagogy and enhanced EMIS to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of education management resources.
– MEHRD
