Clare Schools Plug Into High Speed Broadband

Monday, 04 October 2010 14:26

Written by Conor Joyce

A pilot broadband scheme trialled in two Clare schools is to be extended to all second-level schools nationwide in the next two years, it was announced today.

St Flannan's College in Ennis and St Caimin's Community School in Shannon were among 78 schools nationwide that received high-speed broadband as part of a €13 million investment.

Welcoming the announcement by Communications Minister Eamon Ryan today, Minister for Defence and Clare T.D. Tony Killeen said that Ireland is one the first countries in the world to deliver such a programme on a national level.

“St Flannan's College and St Caimin's Community School are part of the 100 Megabits per second (Mbs) post-primary schools project launched by the Government in June 2009. Under the existing Schools Broadband Programme, primary and post-primary schools can access a basic level of broadband connectivity.

“The nationwide rollout of this scheme marks the next phase in the Government’s ambition to develop our schools into centres of e-learning and to make technology an integral part of the learning process. High-speed wireless broadband means that students will be able to upload and download material faster, access high-volume digital educational content and connect instantly to websites from any part of the school. In fact, the speeds will be similar to those offered to high-end national and multinational companies operating here”, stated Minister Killeen.

The Clare T.D. noted: “The announcement shows that the Government is committed to building schools’ ICT capacity in today’s increasingly knowledge-based society”.

This Broadband to Schools Scheme is the result of cooperation between the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Department of Education and Science, the Higher Education Authority, HEAnet and the National Centre for Technology in Education.

Enhanced ICT facilities, including more than 1500 wireless digital projectors and 2000 laptops, have also been distributed.

The service providers that were successful in the delivery of the fibre and wireless infrastructure include Eircom, Airspeed, Digiweb, e|Net, Imagine, BT, Complete Telecom and Telindus, while Dell Ireland has provided the laptop equipment.