Sarawak News April 19, 2006 12:34 PM Alternative Means To Provide ICT For Sarawak Rural Schools KUCHING, April 19 (Bernama) -- Sarawak will look at alternative means to provide telecommunication facilities to the 280 rural schools in the state, which are yet to have access to the information and communication technology (ICT). Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr George Chan said Wednesday there was no excuse for the government not to provide ICT facilities to these remote schools, including eight secondary schools, in efforts to bridge the rural-urban digital gap. "These 280 out of a total of 1,000 schools scattered throughout Sarawak do not have electricity supply, at present, because they are in the deep interior", he told reporters after opening an international seminar on ICT For Rural Development here. Yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the government planned to introduce teleconferencing in schools in remote areas, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, to ensure that students in these areas were not left behind in their lessons. He said the Education Ministry had been instructed to step up the basic facilities in all these national schools, including supplying electricity. Dr Chan said it was difficult enough to provide such pervasive facilities in a large rural and geographically challenging state like Sarawak, with over 5,000 villages and longhouses as well as half of its 2.5 million population living in the rural areas. So far, the federal government had provided the universal service provider (USP) programme to 110 schools in the state to address the rural digital divide, he said. In line with the federal government's plan to provide better services to rural communities, including better ICT access and usage, he said, the state government would give full support to its initiatives to address the issue. He said state rural ICT initiatives included setting up the Rural Growth Centres (RGCs) programme as a main vehicle to develop remote rural areas with disparate population with comprehensive infrastructures, facilities and services like ICT. Sarawak also targetted to implement 46 more sites for the Electronic Resource Centre (ERCs) programme, from the current 12, to provide free ICT and internet facilities in rural districts, he said. -- BERNAMA