Within the framework of Measure 1.1, Action Category 1.1.5, ‘Creation of Public Information Centers’, can be considered to contribute to the NAPIn aims by concentrating mostly on the difficult to access areas of the country, which fall in the category of geographic isolation.
Measure 1.1 contributes equally to the NAPIn aims 1.1, 1.2 and 2.
Specifically, by the end of 2004, the following projects targeting expressly and directly people with special needs had been included Measure 1.1:
- Project of total budget of 2,435,000€ for the supply and installation of computers and special equipment in the School Units for Special Education (SUSE). The project is in progress (expenses: 766,287€).
Moreover, the equipping and networking of School Units, as well as the creation of Public Information Centres in libraries is an indirect benefit for Measure 1.1.
Within the scope of Measure 1.2, 70 educational software programmes had been produced by the end of 2004 and the expenses declared came up to 2,054,640€ with the disabled being the target-group, while the following project, aiming explicitly and directly at people with special needs has been included:
- Project of total budget ~3,000,000€, referring to Action Category 1 Digital Educational Content and Software with a 2006 deadline.
Until now, the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs had no provision for special software catering for children with special needs as mentioned in the Programme Complement for Measure 1.2 (in the Project Technical Report of the Hellenic Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs there is no specific reference concerning educational software for students with disabilities). In the new tenders for Digital Educational Content and Software there is a relevant provision, while the aim for 2006 is 96 educational software programs (declared expected expenses: 20,640,000€).
In addition, Measure 1.2, by training the educators on the proper use of ICTs in schools, provides an indirect benefit to NAPIn, given that these programs and the promotion of flexible forms of training, including e-learning, contribute greatly, and indirectly facilitate the integration of vulnerable groups, on one hand through the awareness and training of the educators and, on the other, through the utilization of long distance training methods.
The above project is almost 50% complete (expenses ~50% of the budget).
Measure 1.3, in its effort to assuage inequality in the access of cultural material by people with special needs, is serving indirectly the aims of NAPIn, with projects about visitors’ information systems in museums and historical sites, and the digital display of the Olympic Games, with a time frame for completion up to 2006.