An­na-Lisa Paul

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) has so far re­ceived a to­tal of 1,100 ap­pli­ca­tions from par­ents and guardians of stu­dents who are still in need of an elec­tron­ic de­vice to con­tin­ue with their on­line school­ing.

Con­firm­ing this num­ber up to 1 pm yes­ter­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly is ex­pect­ing this num­ber to in­crease as ap­pli­ca­tions con­tin­ue to be re­ceived dai­ly.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via What­sApp, she said even though the two-week ap­pli­ca­tion pe­ri­od would come to an end on April 30, as­sess­ments had al­ready be­gun.

She es­ti­mat­ed that as­sess­ments should be com­plet­ed around three weeks af­ter the close of ap­pli­ca­tions on Fri­day.

Pressed to say what cri­te­ria would be used to de­ter­mine which stu­dents would qual­i­fy for a de­vice, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, “The need­i­est would be dealt with first.”

And what would be­come of stu­dents who are not as­signed a de­vice?

She an­swered, “Based on the ini­tial stu­dents who qual­i­fy and avail­abil­i­ty of de­vices, they may be con­sid­ered.”

The Means Test is be­ing con­duct­ed dur­ing April 12 to 30.

Par­ents and guardians of stu­dents, who still did not have ac­cess to de­vices when school re­sumed on April 12, were in­vit­ed to com­plete the form which is avail­able at all Gov­ern­ment and Gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, and can al­so be down­loaded on­line.

In a re­lease, the min­istry said it was be­ing done, “to de­ter­mine the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty of stu­dents for al­lo­ca­tion of lap­top com­put­ers,” and for per­sons whose so­cio-eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances had pre­vent­ed them from be­ing able to ac­quire one.

Per­sons who have not re­ceived a de­vice ei­ther through pri­vate do­na­tion or the Adopt-A-School ini­tia­tive are free to ap­ply.

Com­plet­ed forms are to be dropped off at re­spec­tive schools.

The MoE said, “pri­or­i­ty will be giv­en to stu­dents pre­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fied as not hav­ing de­vices by schools, and those who demon­strate fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ty on the ba­sis of in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted on the De­vice Pro­vi­sion Form.”

The min­istry said said every ef­fort would be made to en­sure that no child is of­fline as the coun­try and world nav­i­gates the dy­nam­ic changes tak­ing place in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

Par­ents and guardians are urged to en­sure the in­for­ma­tion sub­mit­ted is ac­cu­rate and com­plete so as to fa­cil­i­tate an ef­fi­cient eval­u­a­tion and al­lo­ca­tion of de­vices.

When schools re­opened on April 12, the MoE con­firmed that as up to Feb­ru­ary, a to­tal of 35,700 stu­dents were still with­out a per­son­al de­vice.

In Oc­to­ber 2020, Gads­by-Dol­ly es­ti­mat­ed there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 65,000 stu­dents with­out a de­vice at the start of the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2020/2021.

The Means Test was re­port­ed­ly be­ing de­signed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment.

The min­istry had been ex­pect­ing a ship­ment of 20,000 lap­tops dur­ing the month of April, to be dis­trib­uted to stu­dents in need.