Electronics and engineering for schools

Government will shortly buy 21 385 computer tablets that will go mainly to children, as some parents struggle to afford devices pivotal for education in this COVID-19 era.

Minister of Education Santia Bradshaw described the planned US$14 million purchase of devices, some of which will also go to teachers, as an investment “because we understand that every child doesn’t have a device”.

Speaking at a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) political rally supporting St George North by-election candidate Toni Moore, the Minister said the investment became necessary because “parents are struggling and they may not be able to afford it and we will not sit as a government and cry wolf and ‘oh we didn’t know COVID was coming and we can’t do anything’.”

“We are prepared to make the sacrifice to take us to the point where we are in a position to give our people what we want,” she told the BLP supporters gathered at Market Hill, St George on Sunday night.

Bradshaw said the acquisition of the electronic devices would be paired with the introduction of engineering on the curriculum.

“We have also said that our curriculum has to start to look different. We’ve said that we’re going to introduce coding and robotics in our schools. We started the training already and we are outputting over US$528 000 for robotics kits which are going to be deployed across 21 secondary schools, five primary, five nursery and three special schools, because we ain’t leaving out the special needs children in this country either,” the Education Minister said.

“And we are using as the person to assist us with this, one of our own, Professor Cardinal Warde of the Caribbean Science Foundation, a man who is well-respected internationally as being one of the brilliant minds when it comes to creativity and ingenuity in the global arena.”

Meantime, Bradshaw said the Mia Mottley administration would also be devoting financial resources to fixing up schools that are not only educational institutions but also double as places of refuge during storms.

“We said we would put in place a disaster preparedness initiative, and under that initiative it was two-fold – we fixing the schools because we understand the need for that but we also understand that when we have a natural disaster, we all at some point in time see people going to the shelters which are also schools, and therefore we have a responsibility to make sure that we put our schools in a position where if people have to go to the schools that they are comfortable as well,” she said.

Minister Bradshaw said that in addition to spending $2 million in bathroom renovations, “we also … put $1.48 million into 61 primary and secondary schools to make sure that they have the installation of water tanks”.

She said that $855,000 was placed into installing storm-ready roller-blade shutters on the 20 Category One shelters and there are plans to do the same for other similar accommodation.

“We put generators and fuel storage tanks across 21 Category One emergency shelters in this country. Eleven of those 21 have been completed at a cost of $2.6 million so in the event of a disaster, a shutdown, you have power at a number of our Category One shelters.

“We also made provision for installation of 12 potable water tanks at both the Category One and Category Two emergency shelters,” the Minister added.
(GA)