Stu­dents from schools in Port-of-Spain, Laven­tille and Mor­vant will now be able to ac­cess on­line learn­ing af­ter 55 de­vices were do­nat­ed to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion by An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed.

A to­tal of 18 schools have been list­ed to re­ceive the de­vices.

Some of the de­vices were hand­ed over yes­ter­day at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­er.

An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed do­nat­ed the de­vices as part of the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s Adopt-A-School pro­gramme which sees mem­bers of the pri­vate sec­tor do­ing their part to pro­mote on­line learn­ing be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Speak­ing at the cer­e­mo­ny, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said she is thank­ful for the many de­vices do­nat­ed so far by the pri­vate sec­tor and cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“On be­half of the schools we re­al­ly want to thank An­gos­tu­ra for be­ing there con­sis­tent­ly, this is not a one time, they are con­sis­tent with their sup­port and that is what we mean by be­ing a good cor­po­rate cit­i­zen.”

She added, “The Adopt-A-School pro­gramme has been ben­e­fi­cial to nu­mer­ous chil­dren na­tion­wide and I want to thank all of our cor­po­rate spon­sors who have tak­en the pledge to give to our chil­dren and those who re­ceived their de­vices and start­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion”.

The min­is­ter said there is wait­ing time for de­vices due to the glob­al de­mand.

She thanked prin­ci­pals for mak­ing the sac­ri­fice and al­low­ing those who don’t have de­vices to learn via print­ed pack­ages.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce asked those re­ceiv­ing the de­vices, to be hon­est.

“If you re­ceived de­vices and some­body of­fers you an­oth­er de­vice be hon­est and re­al­ly try to get the per­sons who re­al­ly need it. If you know of house­holds that don’t have any de­vices at all be hon­est and say no, and give to a neigh­bour or some­one in need”, Leonce said.

An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, Act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Ian Forbes said his com­pa­ny was com­pelled to an­swer the call to as­sist stu­dents in need dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“In this re­gard, we are do­nat­ing 55 lap­tops to 18 sec­ondary schools as we try to sup­port the var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties through­out the coun­try. This al­so per­tains to the schools in our fence line com­mu­ni­ty of Mor­vant Laven­tille. An­gos­tu­ra is very much part of this com­mu­ni­ty we are from and of Mor­vant, Laven­tille, Beetham and proud­ly so,” Forbes said.

The An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings CEO added, “The ma­chines that we pro­pose to do­nate are 14-inch Leno­vo Idea pad slim lap­tops. They are equipped with a 2.4 GHz proces­sor and 64GB stor­age, the rea­son why I take my time to point this out sim­ply be­cause Leno­vo is the trust­ed brand that An­gos­tu­ra us­es for its com­put­ing needs.”