Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of lap­tops to schools is sched­uled to com­mence to­day, and to date, 19,914 book grants have been suc­cess­ful­ly dis­trib­uted to el­i­gi­ble ap­pli­cants, ac­cord­ing to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath yes­ter­day.

Dowlath spoke in Par­lia­ment, re­ply­ing to ques­tions from Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly on the lap­tops, book grants and school re­pairs.

Gads­by-Dol­ly, who said the Gov­ern­ment failed to pro­vide the lap­tops by the start of the school term in Sep­tem­ber, queried the ex­pect­ed de­liv­ery date of the 18,000 promised lap­tops, the com­pa­ny sup­ply­ing them, the to­tal cost and oth­er is­sues.

Dowlath, who said the PNM Gov­ern­ment had failed in their ten years to pro­vide lap­tops for stu­dents, added, “The de­liv­ery of the 18,000 lap­tops is planned to co­in­cide with the com­mence­ment of dis­tri­b­u­tion to Form One stu­dents by the end of this term of this Aca­d­e­m­ic Year.”

Thank­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for reignit­ing the pro­gramme, Dowlath said, “The to­tal units are be­ing de­liv­ered by the ven­dor in three sched­uled de­liv­er­ies: 2,500 units were de­liv­ered Tues­day, with the re­main­ing units sched­uled as fol­lows: 8,500 units on De­cem­ber 3 and the fi­nal 7,000 units on De­cem­ber 23.

“But cru­cial­ly, the dis­tri­b­u­tion of lap­tops to the schools is sched­uled to com­mence Thurs­day, No­vem­ber 27, 2025.”

Dowlath said the es­ti­mat­ed cost of sup­ply­ing the 18,000 lap­tops and ac­ces­sories was $135M.

Dowlath said in Au­gust 2025, the Cab­i­net agreed, in­ter alia, that TSTT be des­ig­nat­ed as the State En­ter­prise to sup­ply 18,000 lap­tops and ac­ces­sories for stu­dents en­ter­ing Form One in the 2025/2026 aca­d­e­m­ic year aris­ing from the 2025 Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA).

TSTT was en­gaged through a Sep­tem­ber 17, 2025, Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) and will utilise the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act to pro­cure sup­pli­ers of lap­tops.

On Gads­by-Dol­ly’s call for de­tails of the book grant pro­gramme, Dowlath said the School Sup­plies/Book Grant pro­gramme 2025 was al­lo­cat­ed no fund­ing by the past gov­ern­ment. He again cred­it­ed the Prime Min­is­ter with the pro­gramme.

Dowlath said for the 2025 cy­cle, a to­tal of 31,344 ap­pli­ca­tions were re­ceived for the School Sup­plies and Book Grant.

“Af­ter re­moval of du­pli­cate sub­mis­sions, 28,444 le­git­i­mate ap­pli­ca­tions re­mained for pro­cess­ing. Based on the $7,499 month­ly in­come cut-off es­tab­lished for 2025, some 20,000 ap­pli­cants were as­sessed as el­i­gi­ble, and all were processed for pay­ment.”

“To date, 19,914 book grants have been suc­cess­ful­ly dis­trib­uted to el­i­gi­ble ap­pli­cants,” he added.

As of No­vem­ber 7, 2025, Dowlath said, 86 ap­pli­cants fall in­to the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories:

• 72 ap­pli­cants whose cheques have been pre­pared but not yet col­lect­ed at the Dis­trict Of­fices.

• 10 ap­pli­cants whose cheques re­quire reis­sue, a process cur­rent­ly be­ing ad­dressed with the Trea­sury Di­vi­sion; and

• Four ap­pli­cants for whom pay­ment will be made up­on pre­sen­ta­tion of the re­quired Let­ters of Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Pay­ments will there­fore be com­plet­ed when the 72 out­stand­ing cheques are col­lect­ed, the ten reis­sued cheques are processed, and the Let­ters of Ad­min­is­tra­tion are pre­sent­ed for the four de­ceased pay­ees.”