The Government of Saint Lucia has announced the expansion of the “One Laptop per Child” Programme to include students who will be entering Form three in September 2014. In effect, all students in forms three, four and five in all secondary schools on island, will be equipped with laptops in the new school year.
Prime Minister, Hon. Dr. Kenny D. Anthony, says an evaluation of the programme was submitted in the form of a report and this has given insight into the importance and value of the laptops as an education tool.
“In March of this year, the Ministry of Education produced an Evaluation Report of the Schools Laptop programme. This Report indicated that 90% of parents, 82% of principals, 99% of students and 86% of the teachers were pleased with the Schools Laptop programme. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of parents and eighty-four percent (84%) of students confirmed that the laptops were being used to complete homework, while eighty-two percent (82%) of principals and sixty-seven percent (67%) of teachers indicated that the laptops have helped to improve teaching and education at their school. Ninety-two percent (92%) of teachers and eighty-eight percent (88%) of students reported being comfortable using the laptops.
The Report also provided some other interesting insights, such as the need for more teacher training to support the use of laptops for instruction, a preference for the pre-installation of more subject-specific software, and the insufficiency of the bandwidth available in the schools,” the Prime Minister told the House during the Budget Statement presented on May 13th, 2014.
In addition to providing laptops to Form Fours, as was done last year, the Government of Saint Lucia will include third formers in the distribution.
Government also plans to significantly increase the bandwidth at all schools during the course of the financial year.
See below for the full text of the Budget Statement presented by Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Kenny D. Anthony - click to view/download.
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