More Belizean students will be able to become involved in remote learning. The Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education, distributed electronic learning devices (phablets) at Sacred Heart College on Thursday, October 29. This first phase of the distribution has come as good news, given that every day that goes by without pupils having face to face instruction “…they are falling further and further behind…”
In the ceremony, Hon. Patrick Faber urged teachers to embrace technology. He said that the program is designed to bridge the digital divide, “to help those families who do not have a single device.”
The Logic T10L phablet comes with a camera and so students will be able to view their teachers as well as the other way around.
By the end of the calendar year, all 15,000 devices would have been distributed. In keeping with the Needs Survey, these will be distributed to 50 plus high schools.
The tablets were funded out of a $7 million Inter-American Development Bank loan. Hon. Patrick Faber took the opportunity to also set the record straight.
“In all of my thirteen – February will make thirteen years of my leadership of the Ministry of Education, Minister of Education noh call ina no scandal. That is because I have managed the resources given under my watch in the best way that I know how to make sure that those resources are utilized for all in the education system,” he said, during the ceremony in Cayo.
Some of the recipients on Thursday came from the Belmopan Comprehensive, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Sacred Heart College, the Belmopan Methodist, and the Eden Seventh Day Adventist High Schools. Students from first and fourth form were overjoyed to receive the digital devices that will once again place them back on track with their education.
Similar distribution ceremonies have taken place in the Belize District on Friday October 30, and in the Corozal and Orange Walk Districts on Monday, November 2, and for the southern districts on Tuesday, November 3.
