THE Ministry of Education is currently examining ways to transmit lessons to schools across the island via cable television, the Internet and even telephones as part of the e-learning Jamaica (e-Ljam) project, Education Minister Andrew Holness announced Tuesday.

The plans, if implemented, could see lessons taught by master teachers being transmitted to students in remote parts of the island, the minister indicated.

"We have seen some technologies that are promising but they still need to be tried and tested," the minister said. He said, however, that the ministry was not sure if some of the technologies were robust enough to give access.

The minister said there had been significant delays in getting the e-learning Jamaica project going because of problems with the contracts to get in the equipment, but said he had been reassured that the problems would be addressed soon.
Holness was speaking Tuesday at the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between telecommunications giant Digicel and four tertiary institutions, which will see Digicel providing summer and graduate internship for students of the institutions, and mentorship for the students from Digicel executives.

Institutions signing the MOU were University of the West Indies, the University of Technology, Northern Caribbean University and the University College of the Caribbean - which hosted the function.

Digital technology, electrical engineering, computer science, electronics and physics, marketing, finance and accounting are some of the areas on which the internship programme will concentrate, and it will result in full-time employment for some of the chosen candidates. The programme, which begins in the upcoming semester, will be open to students in at least the second year of their tertiary studies.

The e-Ljam project, which is being implemented in 186 learning institutions - most of them high schools - utilises information and communication technologies (ICT) to introduce new approaches to impart instruction, stimulate learning and deliver education to students.

The projected cost of the e-Learning project is US$50 million, and is made available through the Universal Access Fund (UAF), which is collected from a cess on international phone calls to Jamaica.