The Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) has do­nat­ed 800 ICT de­vices for stu­dents to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

TATT chair­man Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC for­mal­ly pre­sent­ed the de­vices to Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion at a cer­e­mo­ny at TATT’s Barataria of­fice. With­in the next few weeks, 9,200 more de­vices will be hand­ed over to the min­istry bring­ing the to­tal to 10,000.

Min­is­ter Gads­by Dol­ly said the trans­for­ma­tion of ed­u­ca­tion is an it­er­a­tive process—not every­thing will come at once.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Has­sell Bac­chus, who al­so spoke at the event, said the de­vices will bring sig­nif­i­cant change to the lives of many stu­dents and par­ents. He added that the col­lab­o­ra­tive re­la­tion­ship among providers as well as pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies is key to achiev­ing suc­cess to en­sure “no one is left be­hind.”

The ac­qui­si­tion of these de­vices was an­nounced on Oc­to­ber 23 at the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) by TATT and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The to­tal cost of the de­vices, in­clud­ing In­ter­net en­able­ment, is T$15,144,975. This cost is cov­ered by TATT through its Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Fund (USF). The USF is pre­scribed in the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act and is made up of a per­cent­age of TATT rev­enues and con­tri­bu­tions from providers of pub­lic telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices in T&T.