Even though government is reviewing the free laptop for secondary school children programme, Minister in the Ministry of Education Dr Lovell Francis said the Government will use funding to improve information/technology in the nation’s schools by increasing bandwidth.
He was speaking at the Naparima College on Monday where refurbished laptops were distributed to under-privileged people by students by the group Restore a Sense of I Can (RSC).
“We plan to use whatever funding we get from the Inter-American Development Bank to increase the bandwidth available to all primary and all secondary schools,” Francis said.
“This will provide a platform of communication between schools and the ministry, schools and other schools and schools and district officers that are so critically lacking right now.”
He added that 40,000 paper files are being transferred to soft copy. Lauding the members of the Naparima College RSC Club for fixing the discarded computers and providing them to the disadvantaged, Francis said he was “tremendously impressed by the students innovation.”
Saying T&T produced the highest amount of waste per capita, Francis said tough economic times means that citizens must conserve more.
“We were once a society that made something out of nothing. We had so little as a people. Now that we have become accustomed to having plenty, we have to learn to waste less,” Francis said. He said that progressive youths involved in the programme must be commended and their innovative spirits must be nurtured.
President of club Kevon Huggins and public relations officer Jared Hamid said they have refurbished more than 25 computers which were distributed to several children’s homes. Huggins said what started as a casual conversation at the school cafeteria turned out to be a charity project.
Principal of Naparima College Dr Michael Dowlath also commended the students saying there was hope in young people who have the ability to make a difference in society. At the launch of the project, last month, RSC’s technical director, Raj Ramdass, told the students electronic waste (E-waste) was a major environmental problem that the programme could tackle.
“E-waste is a significant global problem and in T&T we don’t have the policies to properly handle our E-waste. This programme can reduce the negative effects on the environment by reusing and recycling old computers and not just letting them sit in the country’s landfills,” Ramdass said. He said the IT club could also teach students to develop applications that could be used as teaching tools.
The group’s marketing director, Randall Sinanan, told the T&T Guardian then that RSC was hoping companies and private citizens would get on board with the programme.
“Right now there are about 60,000 to 100,000 machines in T&T’s landfills. Those machines could make the world of difference to someone who can’t afford one,” he added.