Tablets in Schools Programme Will Not Be Halted – Rev. Thwaites

Education Minister, Hon. Rev. Ronald Thwaites, says the Tablets in Schools programme will not be halted or curtailed, even as he welcomes the call for an audit of the pilot phase of the initiative.

“Yes, we agree in the Ministry of Education and in the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining that the Tablets in Schools programme will be monitored and, in fact, the audit that has been called for has already been done. But there is no way we are going to turn back the future of technology among our students,” the Education Minister said.

He was addressing a ceremony to officially launch the new school year and open the Fidel Castro Campus of the Anchovy High School in Montpelier, St. James, on Friday, September 11.

Technology Minister, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, announced last week that an audit of the project will be undertaken.

The Opposition had called for an audit to be done before the programme enters its next phase, in order to put policymakers in a better position to determine the step forward.

The $1.4 billion Tablets in Schools programme, which commenced at the start of the 2014/15 academic year last September, has targeted the distribution of 25,000 tablet computers to teachers and students in 38 educational institutions islandwide, including early childhood, primary, and secondary schools.

Addressing a function at the University of West Indies (UWI) in June, Minister Paulwell reported outstanding achievements at several schools, in which the pilot programme has been implemented.

“The experiment has been tremendous, so far…especially at the pre-primary and primary levels. We find that, almost overnight, the reading skills have improved, also the level of confidence on the part of the youngsters…and (there has also been an) increase in the morale of the teachers…it really has been quite tremendous,” he said.