Teach­ers across the coun­try are get­ting a ma­jor on­line boost as they em­brace on­line teach­ing, cour­tesy Flow’s Triple A pro­gramme, which pro­vides free broad­band and video ser­vice to schools in need through­out Trinidad.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the com­pa­ny said it was re-en­er­gis­ing the pro­gramme, as part of its com­mit­ment to as­sist­ing stu­dents and teach­ers make a smooth tran­si­tion from brick and mor­tar to vir­tu­al class­rooms.

“On­line ed­u­ca­tion has be­come the ve­hi­cle by which our na­tion’s chil­dren are be­ing taught,” Flow ob­serves. “To date, 424 gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed schools from across Trinidad—rep­re­sent­ing EC­CE, pri­ma­ry schools and ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions—have been in­stalled with the Triple A ser­vice.”

Flow al­so re­ports: “Of this num­ber, some 20 schools have had an ad­di­tion­al boost in ser­vice, with teach­ers op­er­at­ing out of those lo­ca­tions, so teach­ers who are un­able to con­duct class­es at home can take ad­van­tage of the ex­ist­ing Triple A ben­e­fits and teach at school while their stu­dents learn off cam­pus.”

Flow con­sid­ers schools for the Triple A pro­gramme through a for­mal ap­pli­ca­tion found on Flow’s Web site. Broad­band is avail­able to in­sti­tu­tions in dig­i­tal-ready ar­eas.

The com­pa­ny notes that be­cause of the COVID-19 health reg­u­la­tions im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure every­one’s safe­ty, the first term of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year test­ed the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of stu­dents, as well as the pa­tience of teach­ers, as ses­sions were de­liv­ered vir­tu­al­ly.

Prin­ci­pal of Princes Town RC Pri­ma­ry School, Lisa Mad­hos­ingh, says Triple A has made a dif­fer­ence in their ed­u­ca­tion de­liv­ery ca­pa­bil­i­ty.

“Since the boost in broad­band speeds, the school con­tin­ues to en­joy ex­cel­lent in­ter­net ser­vice,” she re­ports.  “We re­ceived ‘very pro­fes­sion­al ser­vice’ from the Flow team and are grate­ful for the sup­port Flow is pro­vid­ing to schools across the coun­try.  They are aid­ing in the ed­u­ca­tion of the na­tion’s youth at a crit­i­cal time in our his­to­ry.”

In ex­is­tence since March 2012, Triple A is an acronym for the pro­gramme’s core val­ues, which eas­i­ly ap­ply to teach­ers and stu­dents who are de­ter­mined to suc­ceed—‘Aim, As­pire, Achieve’.

Coun­try Man­ag­er of Flow Trinidad, Kurleigh Prescod, points out that teach­ers need the best pos­si­ble tools to con­tin­ue giv­ing stu­dents the best ed­u­ca­tion pos­si­ble.

“It is al­ready chal­leng­ing as it is to con­duct a class on­line. Be­cause of Triple A, an ed­u­ca­tor’s con­tact with his or her stu­dents is not lim­it­ed be­cause of un­re­li­able on­line ac­cess,” Prescod says.

The Flow ex­ec­u­tive adds: “Triple A al­lows us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­vo­cate the in­no­v­a­tive and ef­fec­tive use of broad­band tech­nol­o­gy in ed­u­ca­tion. When class­es were con­duct­ed at schools, the broad­band and video ser­vices were plat­forms used for re­search—com­ple­ment­ing the hard copy texts al­ready used in class and en­hanc­ing the scope of knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing among stu­dents and their teach­ers. Now, they are vi­tal tools in con­nect­ing with stu­dents as on­line learn­ing con­tin­ues in earnest.”