(Trinidad Guardian) Government will spend TT$83 million on 20,400 laptops for SEA students. The laptops are expected to arrive in mid-September. The announcement was made on Wednesday by Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh, during a news briefing held at the ministry’s office on Alexandra Street, Port-of-Spain Gopeesingh said: “I am pleased to announce that the evaluation process for the bids submitted in response to the student laptop initiative has been completed, and the best overall accepted proposal has been accepted as Hewlett-Packard.
“The cost of the preferred bidder is approximately $83 million,” he added. Gopeesingh said 20,400 laptops were ordered from Hewlett-Packard, and were expected to arrive in T&T by mid-September.
The new school term begins September 6, and therefore new secondary school students will not have their laptops as the People’s Partnership had promised during its election campaign.
When calculated, the average cost of one laptop worked out to be TT$4,068. Of the 17,270 pupils who wrote the examination this year, 2,000 scored less than 30 per cent. However, 401 will repeat, while 1,599 will be allowed to attend secondary schools, but under a remedial system.
This means that in all, 16,869 students will be given laptops.
As to why the extra 3,531 laptops were ordered, Gopeesingh said: “We want to make sure we have enough for the teachers who would be working with the students as well.” Gopeesingh said because of the limitations in the current education budget, money to finance the machines would be borrowed from the Ministry of Finance. He said the two ministries were in discussions pertaining to the Ministry of Education repaying the Ministry of Finance for the monies borrowed. He said out of eight bids, Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Fujitsu were selected as the top three. Gopeesingh said Hewlett-Packard was selected on the basis of pricing and the assurance of the machines “relevance and applicability.”
He said the bids and prospective computers were evaluated by teams from the Ministry of Education and a representative from the Central Tenders Board to ensure transparency. Gopeesingh said the machines would be working on the Commonwealth of Education software, which would eventually be remodelled specifically for students in T&T. He said a goal for the future would be to eliminate textbooks and provide all learning material through computer software. Addressing public concerns about security, Gopeesingh said the laptops would be outfitted with the tracking device—Computrace—and once reported stolen, the laptop’s Internet connectivity would be permanently disabled.
He said students would be allowed to take their laptops home. For those who wish to leave theirs at school, however, accommodation would be provided. Gopeesingh said the ministry was currently negotiating extended warranties on the laptops. He said to accommodate the new technology, 151 IT technicians would be assigned to schools. “More intensive support and maintenance service agreements are critical in order to ensure on-site technical support,” he said. The minister said all schools would have secure computer labs for all students and bandwidth connections were being upgraded from 3G to 5G. He dismissed claims that Tobago students were not getting laptops.
He assured that all students in T&T would receive their promised laptops for the new term. When asked as to whether he could assure the laptop initiative would continue in the future, Gopeesingh said he had all confidence it would. “The benefits of the laptop initiative extend beyond simply facilitating the delivery of secondary education and directly address the issue of the digital divide,” he said. “The Ministry of Education is confident that this will yield additional benefits and value for the students and by extension, their families.”
Laptop specs
Gopeesingh said the laptops had been outfitted with the following enhanced specifications:
• faster processing speeds;
• improved wireless capability;
• bluetooth connectivity;
• larger internal storage;
• faster hard speed;
• extended batter life;
• Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007; and
• Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office.
