For ages the rural people of Thailand have been lagging behind their compatriots living in Bangkok and major cities in terms of availability of educational resources, which resulted in an abysmal lack of basic education.The situation is expected to be changed dramatically as the Department of Non-Formal Education is launching the free Electronic Library project and a satellite Internet service to narrow the equality gap. The electronic library project, which started two years ago, is aimed at upgrading all of the department's regional libraries, enabling them to provide multimedia access, including Internet, to broaden the basic knowledge of the rural people. To date, the department has completely integrated 30 libraries into the electronic education system, before expanding to cover 700 libraries within the next three years. Kla Somtrakool, deputy director general of the department, said that the project's objective was to develop the rural libraries to become knowledge centers, allowing people to gain the access to international education sources via Internet. The department also wants to improve the management system of its libraries nationwide by the use of an online system. To reach the goal, the department will organize computer training course in order to equip two librarians of each regional library with multimedia skills. The other rural education development project of the department is the free satellite Internet service, including Microworld software supplied by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Suksapat Foundation, a unit of Thaicom Foundation. Kla said that the technology, which had been provided two years ago, will help rural people to improve their ways of living. ''The Microworld programme contains data essential for the living of rural people, for example, how to address pollution problems in their environment,'' said Kla. He added that if the residents of the rural areas wanted to learn more, they would be encouraged and helped to seek the desired information through the Internet service. The department has already finished the installation of the satellite Internet service in four locations in Chiang Rai, Lampang and Buri Rum. Kla said that the MIT was conducting an evaluation of the service before making a decision to provide further support. (Source : Yahoo News, 23.08.99)        Contact: Axel Plathe, UNESCO, Information and Informatics Division