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Speaker:The Honourable Basdeo Panday, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Date: June 21, 2000
Occasion: The Primary Schools Computerisation Project at the Roxborough Sporting Complex, Roxborough, Tobago.
My Dear Friends:
I am very happy to be a part of today�s programme to launch the Tobago Phase of the Primary Schools Computerisation Project.
We are living at a time when the computer has become such a dominant factor of modern existence that Computer Literacy must become a foundation skill in the curriculum primary schools as well as secondary schools.
The use of the central tool of information technology, the computer, should no longer be a luxury restricted to a few.
Computer skills are basic in education and should be used in the home, at work, for recreation, and in every other constructive way.
Computers can individualize learning and allow students to learn at varying rates.
Computers give us access to far more information than is available in school libraries.
Therefore, in this modern world, where our students are preparing for a highly competitive global village, the Government can no longer leave computer literacy to chance.
Our young people have the opportunity to master this technology.
We have, therefore, committed ourselves to making every child in Tobago and Trinidad computer literate.
With the assistance of the Inter-American Development Bank, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has started a programme to take the children of this nation into the 21st century on a platform of technological capability.
To this end, the Ministry of Education has started a programme to place computers in all primary schools in the country.
The objectives of the primary School Computer programme are to:-
- To improve curriculum delivery in various subjects;
- To introduce computer aided instruction into the curriculum;
- To spur innovative methods in teaching;
-To fuel the desire for learning in students via a medium which is not only exciting, but extremely relevant to contemporary society.
This programme will be implemented on a phased basis.
Phase One of the Project involves the computerisation of forty-six primary schools.
Of these, seven are in Tobago.
This represents 21% of all Tobago schools.
The Ministry of Education has instructed that computer labs be established in these schools as a matter of priority.
The programme has already begun.
Phase One of the national Computerisation project is costing some $10 million.
Phase Two, which has already been planned, will cost an additional $20 million.
Eleven Tobago schools will be equipped with computer labs in Phase Two.
As part of this second phase, there is provision for the training of at least two teachers in each school, in Computer Literacy and Networking Fundamentals.
The key subjects in which computer will come into play in our schools are:
-Mathematics
-English
-Language Arts
-Science
-Social Studies
-Music
-Spanish
The versatility of software packages means that computer laboratories can be used for remedial education, average students, special education students as well as gifted students.
Teachers can easily make changes to accommodate their students� learning with a few mouse clicks.
Additional software programs can be easily added, simply by downloading those programmes in the majority of instances.
As we launch the programme today, the Government is moving forward on several initiatives to modernise the entire education system.
We have abolished the Common Entrance Examination and replaced it with the Secondary Entrance Assessment, SEA.
SEA removes the examination load to which students were previously subjected.
The emphasis is now on Language Skills and Mathematics.
The rudiments of literacy and numeracy are the basis upon which all further education will be built.
We are changing, updating and modernising the curriculum.
This is accompanied by training opportunities and professional enhancement of our teachers and principals.
Two hundred and ninety-one Primary School Teachers at the senior level have been trained at the Bachelor of Education level.
Training for another one hundred teachers is being planned.
The Ministry of Education is ensuring greater articulation between primary and secondary education.
An important aspect of such articulation is the fact that students will not be made to face the Secondary Entrance Assessment until they are ready for the Secondary School Environment.
We must always make provision for those children who may have lagged behind.
This will call for special programmes in the Secondary School system for such children.
It is my intention that we will make secondary school education compulsory for all.
That will place on every parent, and on every child, and on the State, the obligation not simply to create a secondary school place for every child, but that every place will be filled by a child who is being taught what is relevant and useable in the world of work, and in the community in which that child lives.
Information Technology is already an imperative in education, in the world of work, and in the world community.
That is why I take such great pleasure in launching the Schools Computerisation project in Tobago.
I am confident that the boys and girls who are with us will make full use of their computer facilities.
May God bless you all.