The case of Jaime Eyzaguirre School, attended by middle-class and working-class children in the Santiago municipality of Recoleta, illustrates one of the many challenges facing the introduction of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) into the educational sector, particularly in view of the boom in Internet use since the 1990s.

"ICTs do not simply represent just another means or tool, but are shaking up the very foundations of learning processes and the place occupied by knowledge in contemporary society," said Chilean educator Emilio Gautier, the coordinator of a research project based on case studies in eight Latin American countries.

The incorporation of ICTs in the educational sphere is one of the main themes to be addressed at the second and final phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which began Wednesday in Tunis.

The study coordinated by Gautier was organised in 2004 and published this year by the Regional Bureau for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). It addresses experiences in teacher training and the use of ICTs in education in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru.

"Teachers who are not familiar with the use of information and communication technologies are at a clear disadvantage in relation to their students. Technology is advancing at a far faster pace in daily life than in the schools, even in remote and impoverished areas where basic services are lacking," commented OREALC director Ana Luiza Machado.

Unfortunately, she added, changes in the educational system have not kept up with the pace of innovations in ICTs.

Lucy Lagos, 45, a fourth-grade teacher at Santa Teresa Elementary School - a state-subsidised private school in the northern Santiago district of Quilicura - told IPS that her students use the Internet, "but outside of school, for example, to do the research assignments I give them as homework."

At the school itself, Lagos explained, there is a laboratory with 20 computers for the students and another three computers for the teachers, but none of them are connected to the Internet.

This situation will soon change, however, when the school is incorporated into the Enlaces (Links) programme, a Ministry of Education initiative aimed at providing all of the country's primary and secondary schools with access to ICTs.

Enlaces was launched in 1992, and now involves the participation of some 100,000 teachers throughout the country. The programme is one of the experiences addressed by the OREALC study in Chile, alongside university programmes for distance education and the training of primary school teachers in the use of these new technologies.

In Bolivia, the Ministry of Education has undertaken a programme for the ICT-supported management and administration of educational facilities, as well as an interactive radio-based learning project addressing the issue of health care.

Three initiatives were studied in Colombia: a university master's degree programme in ICTs, the incorporation of ICTs in the teaching of mathematics, and a "virtual school" in the department (province) of Caldas, operated with the support of local coffee producers.

Maestr@s.com (from the Spanish word for teachers) is a project undertaken by the Ministry of Education in Ecuador, through which the provincial government of Pichincha (where the capital, Quito, is located) is promoting the incorporation of computers and the Internet in the school system, while providing specialised teacher training with the Edufuturo programme.

The OREALC study also takes a look at the experiences of the Diploma Programme in Distance Education in Mexico and the 21st-Century Educator Programme in Panama, which is funded by a private foundation.

In Paraguay, the Doc