The Education Ministry will offer computer courses for senior citizens at about 2,500 community centers across Japan starting in fiscal 2001, ministry sources said Monday.

Course participants will learn computer skills and how to connect to the Internet, the sources said.

The project is aimed at narrowing the expected widening of the technological divide that separates young people from seniors, who are often unfamiliar with information technology, according to the sources.

A 1998 Posts and Telecommunications Ministry survey indicated that only 0.6 percent of seniors age 65 and older use the Internet.

The Education Ministry will include the project in its budget request for fiscal 2001, according to the sources.

The ministry plans to provide subsidies to 2,500 of 17,800 community centers nationwide to lease computers and pay instructors, and intends to offer inexpensive courses to attract many seniors.

It further plans to make the computers available to locals outside of class time to promote the use of the centers, which face shrinking popularity among the public.

Flexible layout urged

The Education Ministry plans to encourage elementary and junior high schools to use movable partitions to divide classrooms into smaller work areas, ministry officials said Monday.

The ministry believes partitioned classrooms are more suitable to the teaching of mathematics and science to pupils split into small groups, the officials said.

Under the ministry's plan, classrooms will also have dedicated computer areas to promote instruction in using computers and the Internet, they said.

The ministry will encourage schools to incorporate such changes into their classroom layouts when school buildings are renovated with the help of special subsidies, the officials said.