Government's folly in the scrapping of the laptop initiative will cost the education system and students/citizens of the country dearly in the coming decade. The state of the economy, while it is of great concern and requires prudence in several areas, should not deter provision of laptops to the nation's students.
We must prioritise expenditure based on the yielded value to the country. In a knowledge-based global economy, it is impossible for any citizen to be competitive in the workplace and elsewhere without a sound technological foundation.
The best provider of the foundation has to be the state with its greater financial resources. From the very beginning, Minister of Education Anthony Garcia failed to provide evidential support for the laptop programme.
The Prime Minister repeated the statement that an 'expert' determined there was not sufficient value to continue this programme.
In both instances, the public is yet to see any evaluation report on the laptop programme by experts, the Ministry of Education or anyone else. In fact, a university lecturer had contradicted Minister Garcia's view and presented a paper in South Africa at a conference on the value of the laptop initiative.
The Curriculum Division is charged with the responsibility for implementation, monitoring, evaluation and success of the delivery of the curriculum in all aspects. The experts are supported by an IT Division in the Ministry of Education.
Are we then to believe that all these experts are so incompetent and inefficient that they were unable to effect IT savvy in the curriculum for the benefit of the nation's students?
The Maha Sabha, almost 20 years ago, recognised the value of the computer in education and introduced computers in all of its schools. Yet, so many years later, this present administration cannot see the value of the computer in education.
This is compounded by the fact that the concept of the digital alien and the 'digital native' have rapidly diminished over the past decade. When ten years ago it was possible to make the argument that younger people were more technologically competent than the older generation, this gap has diffused drastically.
To function effectively in almost all workplaces, employees have to be quite versatile. Older person had to be trained to perform their daily tasks using computers. Word Access, Excel, PowerPoint etc. are now common to most employees, regardless of age. Employees had to take personal responsibility to ensure they are adequately prepared to retain their jobs. Persons who are not properly trained in IT cannot expect to retain jobs in a challenging economy.
Whether it's the administrative sector, the energy sector, the banking sector or the manufacturing sector, sound IT skills are vital. This requires the nation to again evaluate the scrapping of the laptop initiative. The current Minister of Education has become known for scrapping sound initiatives. A very serious concern has now arisen with regard to the laptop, and it seems that this has escaped the attention of the population.
This concern has very serious implications for the country and requires consideration by educators and the general public. Recently there was a full page advertisement in the daily newspapers by the Ministry of Education. Surreptitious it seems, because it was not found on the Ministry's website for the June-July 2017 CSEC Examinations. In a full page advertisement was an instruction in bold, that candidates for those examinations must bring a laptop to the examination to write the examination.
This new requirement to write CSEC examinations has grave implications and consequences, not only for students at Secondary schools, but for the nation overall. While this requirement will find some success, the way forward will be difficult for our students in the next few years unless the decision to scrap the laptop initiative is rescinded.
Students' laptops couldn't only be meant for curriculum purposes or conducting research or even preparing projects and assignments. In addition, to these three aspects of works, the laptops enabled students to become familiar with the keyboard–akin to the kind of speed that typists on typewriters developed years ago. This is important in an examination environment with a fixed duration for each examination.
If students do not develop the requisite hand speed, they will not be able to complete any examinations in the specified time. This is sure to create a disastrous gap in the education system and the disparity between the haves and have nots will be extended in the education system. For families who do not have the resources to procure computers for their children, the inevitable result will be failure and lives ruined.
The nation has to force the government to understand that the personal, professional, social, economic, etc, lives of our students are intrinsically integrated with the technology. Through the computers one can sit in one's location and survey occurrences in the entire world.
This country needs commitment by government and opposition to develop an education plan that cannot be whimsically cancelled when administrations change. Anything less will result in the disintegration of the education system as we are currently witnessing, and the ruin of the lives of our citizens.