With the new school term commencing soon, Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh has assured that the other batch of laptops, some 10,300, are expected to be made available by January 2011. Gopeesingh said all the funding has already been approved and allocated for the laptops which would then be distributed to students. The laptop initiative was an election promise by the People's Partnership Government led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Chievelle Brito, a Form One student of the Success/Laventille Secondary School became the first student to receive a laptop from the Prime Minister. Saying that more than 2,000 teachers were already trained to use the computers, Gopeesingh said the $83 million was money well spent. He said a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system was also implemented to determine the effectiveness of the devices. Thus far, Gopeesingh said there have been no reports of "hiccups" with the laptops that were already distributed. "So far we have not gotten any adverse reports and it seems that the laptops have been put to good use by the students," he said.
Money well spent
"We know it's an important tool that would assist them in their studies and it's money well spent.
"We have a monitoring and evaluation committee and evaluation is expected to begin shortly," Gopeesingh assured. Echoing the minister's sentiments, Zena Ramatali, president of the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) said monitoring of the laptops was crucial as students could be easily swayed to use it for non-academic purposes. Citing an example, Ramatali said she recently scolded a pupil who was caught playing games on his laptop. "I was on the bus and I had cause to speak to a young man after I saw him playing games on his laptop, and these are some of the things that we must try to avoid. "And that's where the role of the parent comes in because it is crucial that students are being monitored while at home and out of school as well," she said. Ramatali said it was only "fair" that parents be made to pay $4,000 in the event of the laptop being stolen as stated in a clause of the contract. "It is time that parents be held accountable for the behaviour of their children. If there is a case where it was a genuine accident then that factor should be taken into consideration. "But if it was a case of carelessness then it's the responsibility of the parents and they ought to pay as stated in the contract," Ramatali said.
Job: No negative reports
President of the T&T Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Roustan Job called on greater collaboration between the association and the ministry. Saying there has been no negative reports since the laptops were distributed. Job said TTUTA intended to conduct a random survey to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the laptops. "The laptops are here and we must let good sense prevail. At the start of the new school term we will be conducting a random survey to determine how well the laptops were working and how well they have been integrated into the school system," Job said. He said one of the "issues" raised with the ministry before the distribution was to have schools properly outfitted with electrical wiring. "That was definitely an issue because there may be some schools which may not have the electrical capacity and some upgrading might have been needed. "And we did warn the Government about upgrading some of the electrical capacity of some schools which may need upgrading," Job said. Saying that TTUTA was "never against" the distribution of the laptops, Job said the organisation was instead concerned by the "manner in which the ministry" operated. "It's really a question of how the ministry did things. Training teachers is just the tip of the iceberg. "We don't want it to be a case where things are being done just for political mileage. We must have stronger ties and greater collaboration," Job added.