Richard Lord and Nadaleen Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was greet­ed with screams and a stand­ing ova­tion from stu­dents of the Suc­cess/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School when she ar­rived to present the first batch of lap­tops to them yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. "Take care of it and it will take care of you, "she told the stu­dents at the si­mul­ta­ne­ous launch of the Gov­ern­ment's eCon­nect and Learn and Pre­sen­ta­tion of Lap­tops Ini­tia­tives at the school yes­ter­day.

She told the stu­dents the lap­tops were their tick­ets to a brighter fu­ture. "Press a but­ton and open up a whole new world," she added.

She sub­se­quent­ly pre­sent­ed com­put­ers to se­lect­ed stu­dents at two oth­er schools, South East Port-of-Spain Sec­ondary School and the Lak­sh­mi Girls Col­lege. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained why Suc­cess/Laven­tille Sec­ondary School was cho­sen to be the first school to be pre­sent­ed with the lap­tops. She said it was be­cause of the first word in the school's name: "suc­cess."

She said it was in­tend­ed to set the tone for oth­er schools and even set the stan­dard. "If suc­cess is the name, then vic­to­ry is your game," she added. The PM said the lap­tops "can take over your lives. It will help you to live up to your name–Suc­cess/Laven­tille." The stu­dents and par­ents ex­pressed their grat­i­tude for the ho­n­oured elec­tion promise. She then urged stu­dents to re­cite the mantra: "See good, be good, do good and good will fol­low you."

At Lak­sh­mi Girls' Hin­du Col­lege

To a stand­ing ova­tion, loud screams Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar walked through the packed au­di­to­ri­um at the Lak­sh­mi Girls' Hin­du Col­lege. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who was al­so a teacher at the school be­fore en­ter­ing pol­i­tics, rem­i­nisced about her teach­ing days:

"There was on­ly one build­ing here and it was called the see-through school... be­cause there were ab­solute­ly no win­dows," she said.

Maya Har­riper­sad, a stu­dent, who was al­so a re­cip­i­ent of a lap­top, and who cel­e­brat­ed her birth­day yes­ter­day, had "Hap­py Birth­day" sung to her by the en­tire school, af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­quest­ed they did so. Among those present were St Au­gus­tine MP Prakash Ra­mad­har, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Rudrawa­tee Nan Ram­goolam, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Clifton de Coteau and press sec­re­tary Gavin Nicholas.