Programa Mundu Novu – National ICT-in-Education Digital Inclusion Programme

Programa Mundu Novu was Cabo Verde's national ICT-in-education programme, launched for the 2009/2010 school year by the Ministry of Education together with NOSi (Núcleo Operacional para a Sociedade de Informação), with technology partners Microsoft (Partners in Learning) and Intel. It pursued a phased 'one student, one computer' model designed and run as Cabo Verde's own programme, not an OLPC Foundation deployment.

The rollout was phased: an initial 2009 pilot at two secondary schools already in Microsoft's Partners in Learning programme plus two primary schools, with 1,300-2,590 pilot computers for students and 270 for teachers; a 2009-2011 phase targeting fewer than 10 students per computer among roughly 78,750 students in grades 5-12; and a planned phase from 2011 toward full one-to-one computing. The programme ultimately equipped 29 primary and secondary schools with classroom and computer-lab kits, installed over 30 free public internet access points ('Digital Squares – Konekta'), and set a target of 1,060 teachers trained by July 2010.

NOSi's own baseline survey found a student-to-computer ratio of 208:1 in secondary schools in 2003; by 2009 this had improved to roughly 65:1 in secondary schools, 244:1 in basic education, and 115:1 as a national average, against a total school population of about 136,582 students across roughly 469 schools nationally.

Evidence quality is mixed: a widely circulated claim of 150,000 laptops distributed is not supported by the primary 2009 planning document; a claim that Cabo Verde ranked 4th in Africa on the ITU's 2011 ICT Development Index traces only to the implementing contractor's own website. An academic thesis (Instituto Politécnico de Bragança) based on a teacher survey documents persistent obstacles: weak school internet connectivity, most students lacking a computer at home, and continuing gaps in teacher ICT training. Mundu Novu as a named programme is now largely historical; Cabo Verde's digital-inclusion effort continues via the World Bank-backed Digital Cabo Verde Project (2020-present) and TechPark Cabo Verde (2023-2025).