"Gape" approves pilot project to offer internet for 181 public schools

© Pablo Le Roy/MCom

The pilot project oriented at taking connectivity to public basic education schools was approved at the 7th reunion of the Monitoring Group for the Costing of School Connectivity Projects (GAPE, in portuguese), held this Wednesday (27). Based on selection criteria discussed by the Group, 181 schools — distributed in 10 brazilian cities — are contempleted. The connection in schools, with the quality and speed necessary for pedagogical use, is an obligation provided for in the 5G auction.

There are two cities per region: Pau D’Arco (PA) e Espigão do Oeste (RO) from the North; Baía da Traição (PB) and Santa Luzia do Itanhy (SE) in the Northeast; Gaúcha do Norte (MT) e Cavalcante (GO) in the Midwest; Berilo (MG) and Silva Jardim (RJ) in the Southeast; and Entre Rios (SC) and Coronel Domingos Soares (PR) in the South. The city with the lowest number of schools selected is Entre Rios, with 10. Cavalcante and Berilo will each one have 24 schools included in the pilot project.

The details of the project were introduced at the meeting by the Diagnostics and Projects Technical Subgroup (SGT Diagnóstico). Once approved, the pilot project will be appreciated by the Anatel's Board of Directors. When validated, it should be delivered for the School Connectivity Administration Entity (EACE) that will provide technical visits together with the Education Ministry (MEC), in order to verify the real conditions of the selected schools. While this process is conducted, the costs to offer internet to school units will be analyzed, based on the references available at Anatel and the Ministry of Communications (MCom).

SELECTION CRITERIA — The group of schools was consolidated based on the selection criteria that, together, structured an index and a ranking. The Municipal Human Development Index (IDHM), the percentage of students without internet, the density of Multimedia Communication Service (SCM) and the differentiated location (in indigenous lands, quilombolas or settlements), were the initial criteria.

After updating the reference numbers related to schools without internet in the country, the Gape considered that, nowadays, there are 9,987 units in 1,479 cities. Those with the higher score (by the SGT Diagnóstico index) were filtered about the presence of optical fiber network infrastructure and the maximum number of schools, for consideration of the small cities attendance. The pilot project purpose is to implement all the school attendance stages, from the external infrastructure for the internal network, with computer labs.

Text: ASCOM | Ministry of Communications • Photo: Pablo Le Roy/MCom • more information: imprensa@mcom.gov.br | (61) 2027.5530