Segment 1

VOICEOVER

It's an uphill battle for Talibi Mahjub. He's just one of nearly 20,000 teachers scattered throughout Morocco's remote countryside, out of touch with the latest teaching methods, out of touch with modern technology.

TALIBI MAHJUB

Teachers in rural areas are suffering from intellectual isolation. They lack the resources to get the right information easily.

VOICEOVER

But all that's changing. In 2004, Morocco, fighting a 55 percent illiteracy rate, earmarked five percent of its gross domestic product -- over one and a half billion dollars -- to overhaul its education system and catapult its rural schools and teachers into the 21st century. How do they plan to do that? In part, using this: a satellite. Satellite technology now zaps the most advanced training directly to rural teachers. Teachers meet monthly in rural training centers like this one, where UNESCO and the International Telecommunication Union, create for them a kind of "Interactive Cyber University." Multimedia designer Ismael Iljii.

ISMAEL ILJII

The trainer in the studio here in the city of Rabat can give a lesson and interact with the teachers watching.

VOICEOVER

Trainers hundreds of miles away in Morocco's major cities are filmed teaching new lesson plans, computer skills, and new ways to research using the internet. Teachers in the rural centers watch these classes live via interactive satellite TV, taking notes, and asking questions. This training has already translated into real change back at his classroom, says Talibi.

TALIBI MAHJUB

This has improved my performance. I don't rely on the established curriculum; I do my own research to find more modern interesting texts for the students.

VOICEOVER

To date, 11 centers have been established, five hundred teachers trained. Eleven thousand more teachers wait for their training at eighty new sites. As part of additional reforms, nearly 3,000 more schoolhouses will be built in the Kingdoms' most remote areas, every one of which will be equipped with new computers. United Nations Television prepared this report.