especially rural communities. The The objective is to facilitate teachers highest priority must be given to their having a PC in their homes to develop engagement and support as a part of competencies this National ICT Strategy. teaching and learning of students in the teaching and the curriculum learning. It is enhance the development of on line and offline trained in the use of ICT, and in its into will classroom. Accompanying this should be It is recommended that all teachers be integration which teacher training courses so that teachers for can continually upgrade and certify also themselves, recommended that all teachers be thereby increasing the number of trained teachers in the provided with a personal computer and country. access to the Internet at a reduced cost. DEVELOPING THE eCOMMERCE INFRASTRUCTURE The Internet and electronic commerce wholesale represent tremendous social and economic electronically using electronic payments. potential for countries such as Belize. The ecommerce development program seeks to create an enabling environment including the requisite legal and regulatory framework that will enhance consumer confidence and protection, electronic payment systems, digital certification and authentication and intellectual property protection. Initiatives will be implemented to address the requirements in all of these areas as follows. and retail businesses The electronic payment infrastructure for Belize’s banks is build in silos in which each financial electronic institution and develops its own online payment infrastructure without any kind of common national standards and interoperability framework. Belize should and must develop and legislate a Common Electronic Payment System that integrates all local banks into a common banking switch interbank network. Belize’s Common Electronic Payments ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEMS System (BEPS) will include but not be The limited to the following services in its availability of effective electronic payment systems is a significant element of network to all participating banks: electronic commerce • business, enabling and electronic government, and Shared Nationwide ATM and Point of Sale Network, provides the switch which enable bank customers to conveniently Belize ICT National Strategy 47