Several devices loaned to students for online classes returned unusable

Dozens of technological devices loaned to students over the last academic year have been returned either damaged or destroyed, and despite parents signing agreements to cover the cost of repairs or replacement, many of them are apparently unable to foot the bill.

Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) President Pedro Shepherd revealed that early in the school term, several devices that were to be handed down to new students were returned unusable, resulting in some being forced to do without in the early days of the new school year.

“A lot of the excuses are that a child was going down the stairs and it dropped and got damaged, or somebody was pulling it from somebody and it got damaged, somebody was doing something and got water on it, and you really cannot, in some cases, ask some of the parents to replace them,” Shepherd told Barbados TODAY on Wednesday.

“There are some who would willingly return the cracked one and ask if they could repair it, but then there are some who say they can’t afford to repair it, but would expect a second device.”

He claimed that in some instances, parents tried to repair the screens or charging ports on their own, but there appeared to be no available parts on the island.

Barbados TODAY understands that before the start of the school year two and a half weeks ago, the Ministry of Education sent out requests for schools to provide updates on the number of devices that were returned in good condition.

Parents had signed agreements stipulating that if the devices were damaged, they would have to pay. However, Information Communication Technology (ICTs) Support Officers assigned to some schools have been uncertain about whether to demand payments for damaged devices or allow those matters to be dealt with directly by the Ministry.

“Some IT [officers] are a bit uncomfortable because a number of the devices are coming back with cracked screens, digitizers damaged, and so on. Obviously, they cannot be given out to anybody else and the children must be online. So there is a request for the child to have a replacement, so ICTs were really scrambling to find replacements in some cases,” Shepherd explained.

“Some of us would have had a few extras last school year, so we would have been able to redistribute what the students returned and have a turnover, but I know there are some officers who are under pressure and who would have requested additional devices at the beginning of this term and those are now to be procured, I guess, by the Ministry of Education. I don’t know how soon they will come.”

Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw, who was in a meeting Wednesday afternoon, said she had forwarded a number of concerns from Barbados TODAY to Chief Education Officer Dr Ramona Archer-Bradshaw. However, up to press time, no formal response had been given.

Earlier in the day, however, Principal of the St Bartholomew Primary School, Anthea Gill, shed some light on the issue while receiving 30 tablets from the Amarone Charitable Trust through the Capital Kids Project at the Limegrove Lifestyle Centre.

“With devices, again, it is not so much that we don’t get a supply from the Ministry. We did, probably from the last school year, but then when you want to give them out again so many of them are damaged that you have issues with being able to give them to another child,” Gill told Barbados TODAY.

“Schools generally would have tried to emphasize to the students and the parents that we are not giving them to you, it’s a loan, but sometimes if they don’t hear it from other official sources that this is not yours to keep, then they might begin to think that the school is not saying what it really is,” the longstanding educator added. (kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)