Intel has pledged to help accelerate Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training’s e-learning initiative which aims to modernise Vietnam’s education system by 2011 and provide opportunities for the country’s teachers and students, especially those in remote and rural areas.
An agreement to this effect was signed in Hanoi on April 9 by representatives from Intel Semiconductor Ltd. Vietnam and the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) under the witness by Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, Deputy Prime Minister and MOET Minister and Dr. Craig Barrett, Intel Corporation Chairman.
Under the terms of the agreement, Intel and local technology companies will make available one million affordable PCs during the next two years. The “Education PC” program’s objective is to provide all Vietnamese teachers with a PC with educational software and broadband Internet connectivity.
The MOET and Intel also announced a contest to encourage one million teachers nationwide to create e-learning content. The goal is to stimulate the creation of one million unique e-learning applications. Evaluation will be done by a dedicated contest jury board with the involvement of local education experts. The winner will be announced at the end of the year.
During the event, Dr Nguyen Thien Nhan and Dr Craig Barrett expressed a shared vision of accelerating Vietnam’s ICT adoption in key sectors, including education, as a cornerstone of the country’s strategy for sustained competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. The initiatives they announced represent the acceleration of an agreement Intel and MOET made in 2007 to increase technology access that advances the quality of education in Vietnam.
“We recognise the value of a technology-enabled learning environment where education is student-centric, and where learning is collaborative and connected,” stated Dr Nguyen Thien Nhan.
“Public-private partnerships, such as those between MOET and Intel, have strong potential to unlock a nation’s talent for sustained competitiveness. We believe today’s announcements represent significant cornerstones of Vietnam’s future success through technology-enabled education,” he said.
With trained teachers, local e-learning content, connectivity to the world’s resources, and PCs – Vietnam’s youth will have an opportunity to realise the potential of its ideas, Dr Craig Barrett affirmed.
In Vietnam, Intel has cooperated with MOET to increase Internet-connected PCs and development of rich, localised content and software applications among local schools, teachers and students including more than 1,900 donated PCs; 43,000 teachers trained to date under the Intel Teach program; and an intention to train an additional 15,000 teachers during 2009.