TABLET INITIATIVE IS STILL ON!

Grenada is learning from the mistakes of other Caribbean Islands in regard to the implementation of its school’s tablet and laptop initiative.  That’s according to Senator the Hon. Simon Stiell, as he made his contribution to the 2018 budget on Monday.

As part of the New National Party’s pre-election campaign in 2013, Grenada was promised that tablets and laptops would be placed in every school — clearly without much thought to what this would entail.

The Technology focused learning or “Tablet for all initiative” has been the subject of criticism in some quarters.

However, five years later, Minister Stiell is now saying that Grenada will not jump into the implementation of the program, without first doing significant ground work.

“St. Vincent saw the errors of their ways, and so did Trinidad.  They rushed out, provided everybody with a tablet; then realized that without the correct training, and without the correct environment it was just a waste of resources and had to do a recall,” said the Education Minister.

“There is a program, and $600,000 have been allocated to it in 2018 to upgrade and ensure that as many of our schools as possible have full broadband access etc., to be able to access those technologies,” the Government Senator explained.

In addition, over 100 teachers are being trained in ICT to assist in the smooth transition of the program in schools.

 “It’s no good swamping everybody with tablets and our teachers cannot teach or students cannot learn,” Senator Stiell argued.

“Mr. President, in 2018 more efforts to ensure that more teachers are developing and delivering lessons with heavy emphasis on the use of ICT tools will be a main focus.