A full roll-out of laptops under Phase One of the government’s One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) initiative should be seen by August with eligible persons having up to July 29 to apply for an instrument.
The period is around the time just before national elections are expected to be held. In glossy brochures placed in the Sunday Chronicle yesterday, the OLPF Project Unit said that completed application forms must be submitted only to the accredited ICT Hubs or the offices of the OLPF Community Liaison Officers in each region and at OLPF community outreach events which will start soon. All applicants will be given a receipt with a unique reference number upon submission of the completed form. The application process will close on July 29.
Under the OLPF, the government plans to distribute computers to 90,000 poor families in Guyana in two years. Phase one, which is being executed this year will deliver 50,000 laptops to priority groups which include single-parent, differently-abled and least fortunate families. Families living together as a single household, who earn a combined income of $50, 000 or less, are eligible.
Application forms are available at all Regional Democratic Councils, Neigh-bourhood Democratic Coun-cils, other local government bodies and agencies, the offices of the selected OLPF Community Liaison Officers and accredited ICT hubs.
In Phase Two, the eligibility criteria will be adjusted to cater to families of higher income brackets.
The flyer says that all approved applicants and their benefitting family members will be required to complete an orientation and training programmes at their respective ICT Hubs which will include use and care of the computer, its features and learning tools and how to navigate the internet, before receiving the instrument.
“Orientation takes five hours while the basic learning module takes 20 hours of guided learning for someone with no previous computer skills”, the flyer says. “All approved applicants will also be required to commit to a specified number of hours in community service, through a mutually agreed community project, while on the OLPF programme,” it adds.
According to the Project Unit, once families receive their laptops, they will benefit from continuous technical support and learning guidance and will have the opportunity to enhance their learning by progressing from basic to intermediary and advanced levels, through their ICT Hubs.
The laptops will be equipped with a range of learning tools, anti-theft security features and internet ready portals. The care and safe keeping of the laptops will be responsibility of the recipients, says the flyer.
In outlining the benefits of the laptops, it says that it will enable parents and family members to become more involved in their children’s schoolwork and create better linkages between the classroom and the home. “It is expected that the achievement gaps between children of poor or working class parents and those of parentage from higher income brackets will be significantly reduced”, it says.
Further, according to the brochure, families joining the programme will benefit from training that will enhance Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills thereby creating new opportunities for employment or entrepreneurship. “OLPF will enhance family, community, and national cohesion; improve educational and social development; enable employment opportunities and economic empowerment, and support Guyana’s modernization strategy”, it says.
Last week it was reported that a review is underway to identify OLPF community hubs. Several entities, including community-based organisations, youth groups, learning institutions and schools, religious entities and sector bodies from all regions in the country, have applied to become Hubs.
The accredited Hubs, the release explained, will fulfill the role of being the central community administrative and learning interface for the OLPF initiative across Guyana.
The hubs “will be required to provide a conducive learning environment and their own facilitators who will be accredited by the OLPF Project Unit; or accommodate OLPF accredited training volunteers, for the provision of technical support to the process, while facilitating and monitoring the technical and social learning progress of participating families”.
The Hubs will also work closely in assisting the Community Verification Committees that will be established to screen families who apply to benefit from the OLPF programme.
Tenders for the supply of laptops/netbooks for the programme are expected to be opened on Tuesday. The company that wins this contract will have to facilitate technical support, after sales service for the instruments and warranty enforcement when needed, according to the bid notice.
The project was initially launched in January, when 142 computers were ceremonially handed over to students from four entities.
It was later disclosed that the computers were bought with a US$50,000 gift from Chinese company Huawei, after it had won a US$14M contract to lay fibre optic cables here. This is one of a number of controversies that have swirled around the project since its launch.
