50,000 students to get internet access

KABUL): Nearly 50,000 students at 55 educational institutes across the country would find access to the internet by the end of next year, two Cabinet ministers said on Tuesday.

Under the $2 million project, the facility would be initially provided to five institutes in Kabul over the next three months and at another 50 institutes in several other provinces by the end of next year, Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak and Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Amirzai Sangin told a joint press conference in Kabul.

“We want to introduce a system through which students in far-off areas could talk with the education minister and share their problems with him,” Sangin said after signing an agreement to the effect with Wardak, whose ministry is working on a plan to ensure education for all Afghans in a decade.

“There will not be a single school lacking laboratory, library and other facilities over the next 10 years,” said the education minister, who acknowledged 480 schools had been closed due to insecurity.

Wardak said efforts were underway and would be intensified with the creation of regional councils aimed at supporting and promoting education to reopen closed schools.

He said three million children remained deprived of education in Afghanistan, where 9.2 million children that translated to a rate of 32 percent were studying in schools.

The communications minister said there were 22 million mobile cell users across the county, hoping internet rate would fall with completion of the 3G internet project, initiated by Noori Fiber Tech two years ago. He said the facility, currently available in 11 provinces, would cover 80 percent of the populations over the next three years. The rate of one megabyte internet fell by $97 over the last four years when it was priced at $4,000, Sangin recalled.

ma/mud

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