The Ministry of Education yesterday announced that it has commissioned smart classrooms at the Brick-dam Secondary School and the East Ruimveldt Secondary School in George-town.
The smart classrooms are equipped with items such as an interactive board, a television that allows teachers and students to connect remotely, and motion and voice-activated cameras complete with a face recognition feature.
Systems Development Coordinator within the Ministry of Education, Godfrey Munroe, explain-ed that the interactive board will allow the virtual student to be able to interact with the class that is being facilitated at the time and view all the content that is being shared. In addition, the smart classrooms will provide for the infusion of Information Communication Techno-logy (ICT) for all subject areas. These facilities, Munroe said, “will have a multiplier effect” as they will allow for expert teachers to reach and engage with other students from other schools and vice versa.
The smart classrooms will benefit the 368 students currently enrolled at the Brickdam Secondary School and the 506 students at the East Ruimveldt Secondary School.
In her remarks at yesterday’s commissioning exercises, Minister of Education Priya Manickchand said that she was very pleased to be commissioning the classrooms especially in this COVID period where information and teaching can flow from one to many using the equipment installed. “This is opening doors for us to occasion the equality and equity that we recognize is needed across the sector about which various parties have spoken.”
The minister assured that the effective usage of the classrooms will not be left up to the schools alone but will be part of a “managed programme” to make sure the classrooms are being used effectively not only to benefit the students at the respective schools, but also those students at other schools which do not have such classrooms.
“Imagine what we can do here. We could get experienced teachers delivering content to thousands of students at the same time. This will help us to expand the reach of our human resources for the benefit of all our students regardless of where they are located.” Manickchand added.
Headmistress Cathryn Fraser of the East Ruimveldt Secondary School said that the smart classroom is “a very a good move” and demonstrates the government’s commitment to education. Brick-dam Secondary School Headmistress Shandrina Welcome-Lee echoed similar sentiments.
Manickchand gave the assurance that the government and the Ministry of Education will continue to establish more smart classrooms and have them commissioned in the coming weeks, the release added.
In February of this year, a smart classroom was also commissioned at Queen’s College.
