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Special Reports
To enhance the computer skills
of Honduran elementary and junior
high school students so they can
better understand the world, gain new
knowledge and benefit from enhanced
competitiveness, the government
of Honduras proposed a program
requesting that Taiwan assist in creating
or improving computer classrooms
in each of the nation’s 2,250 public
schools, fitting each with equipment
and facilities including air conditioning,
electricity, lighting, school desks, 15
desktop computers, a server and online
communications equipment, as well as
cultivating trained computer instructors.
The estimated total cost for this program
was about US$77 million.
To marshal Taiwan’s superior
development strengths, at the end of
2007 the TaiwanICDF echoed trends in
international development, responding
t o t he Hondu r an gove r nmen t ’s
commitment to educational development
by signing for an Information Technology
School Project that would provide a loan
of US$5 million. The project came to a
successful conclusion in 2014.
Enhancing the Overall ICT
Environment through Software and
Hardware
Looking back at the course of the
project, once the TaiwanICDF’s funding
was in place, the management of the
project passed to the Honduras Council
of Science and Technology under a
unified equipment procurement scheme.
All personal computers were required
to include wireless network cards, for
example, while in order to stimulate
elementary school students’ interest in
studying Spanish and mathematics,
computer-aided teaching software and
general office software such as Microsoft
Word, Excel and PowerPoint were also
included.
A TaiwanICDF mission dispatched
in November 2014 concluded that
t h e i n s t a l l a t i o n o f
ICT equipment and
corresponding software
h a s e l e v a t e d t h e
academic advancement
rate of students who
h a v e c o m p l e t e d
elementary and junior
high school, and has
also exposed community residents to
the Internet, helping to increase the
stability of local society.
However, monitoring activities also
found that in addition to the hardware
considerations that come with this type
of project, associated software and
personnel are also very important. Since
the goal is to boost the computer skills
of elementary and junior high school
students, it is necessary to pay attention
to the needs of students at different
stages of learning when appraising
which software to install, as teaching
software aimed at elementary school
students is not always applicable for
junior high school students. Further, file
size constraints can affect the overall
performance of computers — although
fortunately, in the case of this project,
professional computer training for
instructors had raised their ability to
adapt, and in the event that software
becomes inconsistent with users’ needs,
it will be possible to switch to other, more
suitable software fairly rapidly.
As for computer systems, to address
the obstacles affecting network
connectivity, schools need to be asked
about Internet use in advance, in order
to prevent a situation in which equipment
is purchased en masse but does
not conform to their
needs, while it is also
necessary for systems
to comply with telecom
r e g u l a t i o n s . T h e
Honduran government
i s con f ron t i ng t he
issue of barriers to
connectivity head on
by revising telecom regulations, and has
tasked the National Communications
Comm i s s i on w i t h t he ongo i ng
management of the project, utilizing
communications funds managed by
the commission to continue to set up
wireless communications networks in
Honduran schools and public spaces,
so that the ICT hardware provided
by different sources can be used to
maximum effectiveness.
1,189
C o m p u t e r c l a s s r o o m s
established in participating
schools
Information Technology School Project,
Honduras
Case Study
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