Mozambican Education Minister Aires Aly on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding on implementing a pilot project to place computers in schools.

Mozambique is one of 20 African countries involved in this initiative, which is part of the "e-schools demonstration project" of NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development).

Also signing the memorandum were Peter Kinyanjui, Coordinator of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission, and a representative of a consortium formed by the companies Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Aires Aly said the memorandum will allow six selected secondary schools to have properly equipped computer rooms, with Internet access, which would boost the teaching-learning process.

"This marks an important stage in computerisation policy in our country", said Aly, and would "contribute significantly to the integration of Mozambique into the rapid and irreversible movement of globalisation".

Information and communication technologies (ICT), he added, were now playing a key role in the "knowledge based economy". The computer rooms, Aly said, would serve not only the pupils and their teachers, but also the local communities.

Kinyanjui said the NEPAD e-Africa Commission is intended to speed up the development of information technologies on the continent and "bridge the digitial divide in Africa, and between Africa and the rest of the world".

He said the demonstration project "is intended to provide a continental learning mechanism, base don real life experiences, of implementing ICT in schools across Africa that will serve to inform the roll-out of the broader NEPAD e-schools initiative".

He said that three of the Mozambican schools have been allocated to Microsoft, and three to Hewlett-Packard. These companies will provide the hardware and sofware, and train the teachers in basic computing skills.

The schools chosen are two in northern Mozambique (in Angoche and Cuamba), two in the centre of the country (in Tete and Gurue), and two in the south (in Inhambane and Matola).

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