All German public libraries and schools will be equipped with personal computers and will have free Internet access by next year, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced September 18. The initiatives are part of a plan to boost Internet use by Germans that will include Internet training for the unemployed.
“We do not want to divide society into users and non-users,” Schroeder said. German universities plan to increase by 60,000 the number of students specializing in information technology by 2003.
Some of Schroeder’s measures, such as a pledge to make all government services accessible through the Internet within five years, were seen as characteristic of a cautious approach to the new medium, Reuters reported after the announcement.
About 25% of the public libraries and 41% of research libraries in Germany have Internet access, according to the journal Bibliotheksdienst, compared to 94.5% in the United States. About 20% of German schools have access; this compares to about 95% in the United States, according to a National Center for Education Statistics survey.
Posted October 9, 2000.