Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)
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Question 69: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will strengthen the capacity of schools to effectively use broadband and information technology by providing software appropriate to the syllabi taught in schools and training for teachers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13508/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The major focus for my Department under the ICT in schools programme at present is the roll-out of broadband connectivity to all recognised schools. This project is being undertaken in partnership with industry, following the establishment of a three year €18 million joint Government and IBEC-TIF, Telecommunications and Internet Federation fund to fund local connectivity at school level. The broadband connectivity is being provided via a schools national broadband network, supported by HEAnet, in order to provide managed Internet access, e-mail, security controls and content filtering. A broadband support service is being managed by the National Centre for Technology in Education, NCTE, to assist schools with advice and information relating to the roll-out and ongoing use of their broadband connectivity within the schools network. The overall costs of the schools broadband access programme, including the initial set-up and ongoing costs over the three years, are in the region of €30 million.

The schools broadband access programme builds on the investment by my Department in grant aiding schools to develop their internal networks. Since December 2004, over 3,700 schools have received grants to develop their networking facilities at a cost of some €20 million. The development of internal networking facilities in schools is critical to supporting schools' full exploitation of the potential offered by broadband connectivity and the efficient use of computer software.

A range of supports have been put in place by the NCTE including a comprehensive teacher professional development programme, the provision of on-line teaching resources, the support and dissemination of innovative practice and the provision of technical advice. An ICT advisory service, incorporating 21 ICT advisers operating from the full-time education centres, provides advise and assistance directly to school in their catchment areas.

Specifically, in relation to teacher professional development, the NCTE arranges for the provision of some 10,000 training places annually, in the main through the regional education centres. Courses are designed to meet the specific needs of teachers in their use of ICT. A range of courses, including technical courses, subject specific courses, and Internet, web design and digital media courses, are provided.

High quality digital content is essential to ensuring effective use of ICT in the classroom. In this context, the Scoilnet portal has been developed to provide a focal point of reference and a resource for teachers, students and parents. This portal site provides significant amounts of curriculum-relevant content linking to over 6,000 websites, the content of which is aligned directly to curricular and subject areas. Work is ongoing, in collaboration with teachers, in building relevant indigenous content on the site, much of it in partnership with other agencies such as RTE and subject teachers' associations. The following weblinks were launched during 2005: www.fis.ie, www.scoilnet.ie/lookathistory, www.iamanartist.ie and www.scoilnet.ie/french. These resources build on existing resources such as www.scoilnet.ie/geography, www.scispy.ie, www.scienceunleashed.ie, www.scoilnet.ie/hist and www.teachnet.ie. The NCTE is working with the European Schoolnet, EUN, to implement a technological infrastructure to allow Irish schools to share access to a wide range of on-line educational databases located around Europe. An important aspect of this process is the development of an application profile for Irish curricular content to facilitate meta-tagging of content to international standards. The NCTE is collaborating with the NCCA in this regard. The NCTE is also considering the acquisition of a range of on-line reference libraries.

The NCCA is currently developing an ICT framework to provide a structured approach to ICT in the curriculum and assessment for teachers of students during compulsory education. The framework will identify key learning experiences with ICT which all students should achieve by the end of the compulsory education. The Deputy will also be aware that the new leaving certificate syllabi in technology and design and graphics are coming on stream with effect from the 2007-08 school year.

My Department is currently examining the future priorities for the ICT in schools programme. This work is being complemented by a census of ICT infrastructure which was undertaken by the NCTE and is currently being finalised and by an evaluation of the impact of ICT on teaching and learning which my Department's inspectorate is currently conducting.

Gay Mitchell (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of primary schools with broadband access; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13335/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is currently engaged in the roll-out of broadband Internet connectivity to all recognised primary and post-primary schools. This project is being undertaken in partnership with industry, following the establishment of a three year €18 million joint Government and IBEC-TIF, Telecommunications and Internet Federation, fund. Following a competitive public procurement process, contracts were finalised with a number of service providers for the provision of local broadband access to 3,925 schools at both primary and post-primary level. A further 75 schools' broadband connectivity was being advanced separately under two pilot projects. Of the overall total of 4,000 schools, some 3,272 are primary schools.

As of last Friday, 31 March, 2,855 primary schools had their basic connectivity service installed and 2,647 of these had their router installed, either separately or as part of the basic connectivity service. It is expected that vast majority of the difficulties encountered in theremaining 419 schools, either as a result of the failure of the initial technology selected or having regard to other local issues, will be addressed over the coming weeks.