61 tech ready . . . St Alban’s Primary school students receive tablets

Sixty-one Class three students at St Alban’s Primary School were smiling from ear to ear today when they received tablets from the Aron and Christina Truss Foundation.

Minister of Home Affairs and Member of Parliament for St James North Edmund Hinkson joined the Truss’ and high net worth individual Ryan Pannell, to present the tablets to the appreciative students.

Aron Truss started the Tablet Project about six years ago to give children at rural schools the opportunity to become tablet owners to enhance their classroom learning experience. In delivering remarks, he encouraged the students to take good care of their new devices and to use them wisely.

Meanwhile, Pannell said he partnered with the Foundation to provide the tablets because he knew how important it was to keep in touch with technology and the World Wide Web.

In fact, Pannell shared with the children how the Internet helped him and his family choose Barbados as the place where they wanted to reside.

“The internet helped us to select Barbados. But the real reason that we have donated these tablets is actually an expression of our gratitude to you, the people of Barbados. You don’t have to let us come here.

“When we moved here from Canada half a decade ago, you didn’t have to let us live here; immigration policies didn’t have to let us come and stay here and the fact that you did allow that changed my life and it changed my wife’s life and it changed our children’s lives.

“We will be grateful for that for the rest of our lives. And so, as an expression of our gratitude to you, we would like to give back something that could help you,” Pannell said.

Meanwhile, Hinkson encouraged the students to give back to their communities whenever they get the opportunity to do so.

The Member of Parliament also urged the charges to use the devices productively and positively to increase their knowledge, instead of using them to circulate fake news and matters that would damage others.

“But use it to increase your knowledge because knowledge is power. The person who has the greatest knowledge is the person who is king, who rules.

“And you are never too young to acquire knowledge. So use these to acquire knowledge because you do not want when you become an adult to look back on the first two decades of your life and say I fooled around at school,” Hinkson said. (AH)