Argentine President Alberto Fernández has announced plans to connect schools across the country to the internet and plans are underway.
He suggested that some 2,700 schools would be connected to internet services within the next 90 days. No precise details were given on how this would be done, although this may be linked to an announcement in January by the president of Arsat, the Argentine government-owned telecommunications company, that Arsat and the Ministry of Education were about to sign a declaration. It was agreed that 3,000 schools would be connected via satellite and, where possible, fibre optic connections would be used.
There are reports that 10,000 schools will be connected this year, roughly on top of the 2,700 mentioned; this will allow 3 million students to access internet services.
Around 5.2 million students are already connected. This means that, according to the President, by the end of this year, 90 per cent of students enrolled in the country's education system will be connected to the internet.
The president also announced that the government will distribute 600,000 computers to schools and that a tender has been issued for the purchase of one million computers. The government plans to build 3,000 digital classrooms for early learners this year and a further 7,000 by 2023.
Educational connectivity has been a theme in Argentina for some time. We reported in October 2021 that Argentina's communications and media regulator (Enacom), its Ministry of Education and the National University Council (CIN) had jointly agreed to implement a plan to provide and guarantee connectivity in the country's university education centres, including the deployment of Wi-Fi 6 in the country's 58 national universities.
