RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day re­turned to the com­mu­ni­ty where she once sold veg­eta­bles as a child to de­liv­er the first batch of ar­ti­fi­cial-in­tel­li­gence-en­abled lap­tops to stu­dents, urg­ing them to use the de­vices as a “win­dow to the world.”

Speak­ing at Pe­nal Sec­ondary School, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the dis­tri­b­u­tion marked the re­new­al of the “Learn­ing With­out Lim­its—A Lap­top for Every Child” pro­gramme.

“This is my con­stituen­cy for more than 30 years, my home­town, the soil where my child­hood foot­steps were formed,” she said.

“Chil­dren are the world’s most valu­able re­source and its best hope for the fu­ture.”

She told stu­dents the ini­tia­tive is part of a wider na­tion­al ef­fort to ex­pand dig­i­tal ac­cess.

“Promise made. Promise kept. To­day, promise de­liv­ered,” she said to loud ap­plause.

The Prime Min­is­ter not­ed that 18,000 Form One stu­dents will re­ceive lap­tops this year through a part­ner­ship in­volv­ing sev­er­al min­istries and na­tion­al agen­cies.

Her ear­li­er ad­min­is­tra­tion de­liv­ered lap­tops and ICT tools be­tween 2010 and 2015 be­fore the pro­gramme was lat­er dis­con­tin­ued.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the new phase builds on the orig­i­nal plan and aims to sup­port stu­dents, teach­ers, and schools with train­ing, con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty de­vices.

“This ini­tia­tive is not just about de­vices,” she said.

“It strength­ens Trinidad and To­ba­go across dig­i­tal eq­ui­ty, learn­ing be­yond the class­room, a fu­ture-ready work­force, na­tion­al re­silience, and na­tion­al uni­ty.”

She urged stu­dents to care for the de­vices.

“This lap­top is not a toy. It is your gate­way to knowl­edge and op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said the launch ful­filled a com­mit­ment made ear­li­er this year that stu­dents en­ter­ing sec­ondary school af­ter April 28 would re­ceive lap­tops. Stand­ing in Pe­nal, she said the dis­tri­b­u­tion con­nect­ed her own ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ences with the goals of the pro­gramme.

“It feels fit­ting to de­clare the Learn­ing With­out Lim­its, Lap­top for Every Child ini­tia­tive open,” she said.

Mean­while, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath an­nounced that all lap­tops un­der the Gov­ern­ment’s Form One dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gramme will ar­rive be­fore De­cem­ber 23, com­plet­ing the de­liv­ery of 18,000 AI-en­abled de­vices.

He re­vealed that 2,500 lap­tops have al­ready been de­liv­ered, an­oth­er 8,500 will ar­rive on De­cem­ber 3, and the re­main­ing 7,000 will be in the coun­try by De­cem­ber 23. He not­ed that the dis­tri­b­u­tion sched­ule will be shared with par­ents as the roll­out con­tin­ues, fol­low­ing the first han­dover at Pe­nal Sec­ondary where 168 stu­dents re­ceived de­vices.

“These lap­tops mark the restart of a na­tion­al tech­no­log­i­cal ef­fort aimed at ex­pand­ing ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion,” he said.