Inauguration in Chacao of Caracas’s First Municipal Student TeleCenter

The Mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo López, and the executive president of the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), Enrique García, inaugurated today the Student TeleCenter at the Andrés Bello Municipal Education Institution. The Internet School is the first municipal project of its kind in the Caracas area.

This initiative represents the initial step in the process of modernizing and strengthening the use of the city’s “Technologies of Information and Communication (TIC).” With the TeleCenter, students will be better prepared and will have easier access and greater use of technological tools as an instrument for improving the qualitaty of their education.

During the opening ceremonies of the TeleCenter, Enrique Garcia stated that, “A priority objective of our institution [CAF] is to support the adoption, access, and education of information and communication technologies among our shareholding countries in order to promote the more efficient development, participation, and incorporation of our communities in the global economy and digital society.”

On his part, the Mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo López, pointed out that, “We support the work in the classroom using advanced tools that permit the students and residents of Chacao to have access to technology. The goal is to stimulate learning and develop a pilot project that not only extends to other schools in this municipality, but also serves as a model for the creation of virtual schools in the rest of the Andean countries.”

CAF provided Chacao US$63,000 in the form of a Non-reimbursable Technical Cooperation from CAF’s Fund for Social and Human Development (FONDESHU), which is directed at supporting productive community projects. The contribution will be used to acquire the services for access to the Internet’s pedagogical system, as well as to finance the program for training and continuing education of teachers in the use of the technology. The municipality contributed the remaining 40% of the funds (US$42,000) to be invested in this project.

Some of the principal objectives of The Internet School are: to prepare citizens in the use of and access to the tools of technology; to facilitate the student community’s access to information; to develop the skills necessary to empower scholastic communities, invigorating the active incorporation and participation of the students, and providing them room for access to the information, documentation, creation, communication, and stimulation of employment, and promotion of microenterprises, among other uses that can be advanced by means of these TeleCenters.

The software was developed by Quática, a business dedicated to the development of educational programs that improve the preparation of students, counting on the necessary tools for their growth. In the present case of Chacao’s TeleCenter, it consists of an interactive educational method in which the entire community can participate.

The Andrés Bello school’s student body consists not only of people from the town of Chacao, but also people from the Estado Vargas who were moved to Caracas because of the tragic events in December of 1999. This Municipal Education Institution has 70 teachers, and 1,204 students in two shifts, from preschool to ninth grade.