Physical and financial accessibility for computer
devices, Internet access and usability of modern technology still is very poor
in rural areas of Georgia. Social economic factors and oldness group of
population is the main cause of the problem. Geography of the country is very
diverse; a lot of villages are spread in the high mountain areas where neither
modern technology, nor social services are well developed and accessibility
criteria are very modest.
Government of Georgia (GoG) initiated
program “Laptop per child” in the frame of Education reform and was targeted
for every elementary school child. Thus,
there was a technical and political support to develop knowledge and skills for
new generation. Knowledge gap between generations was still very feasible, and
another intervention was in the agenda of the government.
There were a lot of issues on the table for
discussion: technical support, public relation, and financing questions were
main challenges of new program development and implementation.
Official ceremony of establishment of
“Society of Computer Skills and Knowledge Promotion” (SoCSKP) was held in May
10th of 2012. Society was officially supported and promoted by
President Saakashvili and his personal involvement was stressed as an important
accelerator of the process. http://ghn.ge/news-72854.html
Establishment ceremony was held in a very
extraordinary environment, the venue was museum of famous Georgian public
person Ilia Chavchavadze, who had a tremendous merit of country development and
today he is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern Georgia.
Society was established based on Public
Private Partnership (PPP) approach. The GoG provided political and technical
support through the local authority involvement (office area and physical infrastructure).
Internet providers were participating in the process (voluntarily without any
discrimination and business activity pressure) with the responsibility to
provide and assure better Internet coverage and access countrywide.
Mission statement of SoCSKP was very
comprehensive. The main target and focus was literacy and skills development,
additionally free services were also provided (free printing, free access to
Internet, free scanning, social networking opportunity and etc.,).
Should be underlined positive externalities of
the initiative.
- During the fist stage of the project three hundred center were established, where 600 local people were employed
- Computer skill development could serve to the result of employment problems improvement;
- A lot of online serviced were developed by the governmental agencies thus, internet accesses improvement together with developed skills of usability will improve public service eligibility for rural population;
- Agriculture is the main source of income for rural population, thus Internet access is supportive instrument for product distribution, also farmers have opportunity to reach important information for their private business.
Facebook page is also very actively updated. Should be mentioned that, there are a lot of important materials and learning instruments not only about computer skills and knowledge development but for other interesting topics as well. For example, there are tutorial cartoons about "what is the project development" and etc.
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