KIGALI - The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project is set to introduce a cyber security mechanism that will protect beneficiaries, who are mainly minors, from accessing pornographic and other unsuitable web content.

This was disclosed on Monday by Nkubito Bakuramutsa, the OLPC Coordinator in the Ministry of Education, while speaking to The New Times.

"Once we have finished connecting the OLPC schools to the internet, we shall use a firewall to filter the access of the children to pornography and any other unnecessary content that can corrupt the minds of the young ones,” he said.

"It is very vital to protect the minors from web content that is unsuitable for them.”

Bakurumutsa added that they will put in place a child filtering software that will block or allow only web pages that aim at the enhancing education through the introduction of technology in primary schools.

Stressing the aim of the project, Bakuramutsa said that OLPC will help primary school pupils to get early access to computer skills while expanding their knowledge on specific subjects like science, mathematics, languages and social sciences through online research.
"This is a fundamental step towards ensuring a knowledge-based economy for our country.”

He said that, the OLPC project proposes to adopt a community access approach where internet access routers will reach a radius of between 1km and 5km around the school to benefit area residents.

"This will enable schools to share the internet cost with various public and private entities that can then help fund the cost of operations, repair and maintenance of the access,” he underscored.

"This is also a quick way of increasing Information Communication Technology penetration rate in the country”.

So far, about 8,000 laptops have been distributed in the pilot phase to primary schools in the country, both public and private.

The next phase will see the project distribute 60,000 computers to 150 schools country wide.

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