Vol. 512 No. 1
37 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Education and Science the steps, if any, he is taking to ensure that the information and communications technology in schools become central facilitators of community access and be a condition of the role set to schools. [25212/99]
The issue of community access to ICT resources in schools is, in the first instance, a matter for individual school authorities. The considerable hardware and software resources made available to the school system by my Department under IT2000 has helped create an ICT resource infrastructure which, in many cases at local level, is made available by innovative schools to a range of community interests.
The National Centre for Technology in Education, through the schools integration project, has put in place a number of regional and national pilot projects on ICT development in education involving parents and various community groups, including some refugees and asylum seekers. These pilot projects are funded by my Department in partnership with private enterprise and local agencies. It is envisaged that best practice models of community engagement which emerge from these ICT project initiatives will inform future advice to schools as part of the continuing expansion of ICT resources in the education system.
Increasingly, large urban schools, both primary and post-primary, are providing afternoon and evening access to ICT resources by organising courses in ICT for local groups. Community, comprehensive and VEC schools and colleges continue to offer an expanding range of ICT programmes to the wider local community.
