IT education for rural communities in Nepal

Nepal is a mountainous landlocked country with population of 23.2 million. And about 86 per cent still live in rural areas. ICT is a powerful tool that can help economic growth and contribute towards proggressive social change. ICT revolution impose, particular challenges on education systems in Nepal. The context within which these challenges present themselves is that of globalization, in the world of increasing disparities between the rich and poor among, and within the nation. Students in remote areas without electricity should not be left out any longer from access to ICTs, if one wants to avoid grave consequences arising from illiteracy in IT education. Keeping this in mind. HMG/Nepal has provided some policies to disseminate IT education in rural areas. The paper contains possibilities of IT education using solar energy in rural Nepal and also depicts impacts of solar-powered computer in Shree Diwas Secondary School as well as lessons learnt from it. And it also deals with technical aspects and cost-effective solutions for deployment of computer systems in rural schools of Nepal. In this paper, a concept of digital libraries in rural areas is also presented, which is response to challenge and promise of ICT for rural development.