JAKARTA, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Education Minister Muhadjir Effendy said on Friday that the government has set a target to make 4,000 schools connected with the internet by 2019.

The minister said that efforts to comply with the target through the government's Universal Service Obligation (USO) scheme have been underway. At present 1,472 schools across the country have internet connections.

"But this is still far from the target. I would ask my subordinates to double the efforts so as to make the target compiled by next year," the minister said in his office here to open the Information Technology (IT) training and handing over the IT equipments to representatives of schools.

Through the USO scheme, the government provides sets of high technology devices, including servers and computers, to support internet connections in schools, he added.

The internet-connected school program, which is co-organized by the national education and communication and informatics ministries, was highly expected to make teachers and students more savvy with information technology and develop their competences in the sector.

In the future, the ministry said, online-based education system would be enhanced so as to allow students and teachers in remote and rural areas have the same quality of the education as the ones in urban areas.