ICT for rural education: A developing country perspective

Abstract

1991, as part of its educational reform, the Chilean government launched the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Schools initiative, the "Enlaces Network". Its aim is to properly integrate ICT into Chilean public schools. After more than ten years of development, with 100 percent of Chilean secondary schools and more than 50 percent of the primary schools already using ICT, Enlaces is entering a new phase with a more curriculum-oriented focus and with the goal of incorporating all rural schools by year 2005. The paper addresses the main implementation constraints of the Chilean rural environment and their effect on the ongoing ICT policy: The geographical isolation and precarious infrastructure; the fact that rural schools are usually very small schools with different grades sharing the same classroom. The cultural reality of rural areas involves a special kind of relationship between the school and the local community. Those constraints, together with the previous experience with Enlaces in different Chilean realities, have been taken into account to define a special ICT policy for rural schools in Chile. First, a special long-term teacher training program with a specific pedagogical approach that fits a rural environment has been developed and tested in pilot schools. Second, the definition of a local support organisation to help sustain development strategies in the long run has been established. Third, the hardware and software infrastructure required and Internet access have also been analysed together with the technical support. Finally, community involvement in school activities was also included in the policy. © 2003 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.