Clay­ton Clarke

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is as­sur­ing the na­tion that the promised lap­tops will be giv­en to stu­dents by the end of Sep­tem­ber.?

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing at Co­co Reef Ho­tel, Crown Point, To­ba­go, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there were de­lays as the ten­ders were re­opened. But the Prime Min­is­ter said the com­put­ers were or­dered and should be de­liv­ered by the end of this month. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had no ev­i­dence to sus­pect that the ten­der­ing process was flawed and called on peo­ple with in­for­ma­tion to come for­ward.

With re­gards to the price the Gov­ern­ment was pay­ing for the lap­tops, the Prime Min­is­ter ex­plained that the com­put­ers would be equipped with pro­grams de­signed for the stu­dents. "Some are ar­gu­ing that lap­tops cost­ing US$300 and we are buy­ing one for US$600," she said. "There is a ship­ping cost. It will be loaded with pro­grams that will ben­e­fit the chil­dren. "The lap­tops will be equipped with safe­ty de­vices, so if lost can be shut down by re­mote via com­pu-trace."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed claims that the com­put­ers would dam­age the chil­dren and en­cour­age vi­o­lence. "How is it when par­ents can af­ford to give their child a lap­top, noth­ing is wrong with that?" she said. "But when we want to give it to poor chil­dren, that is where the is­sue has arisen. I am de­ter­mined that one day every stu­dent will have a com­put­er. "First there was the slate, then the copy­books. Now, to­day the age is the com­put­er. You may ar­gue that there are com­put­ers and com­put­er labs at schools.

But what hap­pens when the chil­dren leave school? The rich chil­dren have theirs at home, but what hap­pens to the oth­ers?" Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Goopeesingh said an ad­di­tion­al 84 more na­tion­al schol­ar­ships would be award­ed this year for suc­cess­ful Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tions (Cape) stu­dents.

He said this year, 324?stu­dents would be award­ed, based on their per­for­mance in the 2010 Cape ex­ams. He added that Cab­i­net took the de­ci­sion not to re­duce the num­ber of re­cip­i­ents. "This will be 56 open and 270 ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ships which are cost­ing $27 mil­lion," he said.