TT gov't awards $83M contract to HP for laptops

Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh told reporters Wednesday the government of Trinidad and Tobago has awarded an $83 million contract to Hewlett Packard (HP) to supply 24,000 "fully loaded laptops" for distribution to high school students.

The People's Partnership government campaigned on a promise to give a laptop to every child entering high school in September based on the results of the Secondary School Assessment (SEA) examinations.

Gopeesingh acknowledged that the cost is higher than what he first announced. However he said the benefits are worth it.

"The Government firmly believes this is a good investment in the children and, by extension, the human resource of this country," he said.

Gopeesingh said the ministry will pay for the computers from its budget without having to seek additional funding from the treasury.

He explaned that HP will equip the computers with special security software that will prevent the children from accessing content that is deemed unacceptable.

He said the machines will serve for a number of years. "The laptops will be outfitted with...faster processing speeds, improved wireless capability, Bluetooth connectivity, larger internal storage, faster hard drive speed, extended battery life, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office," he said.

He said the ministry is already training teachers on how to use the laptop in the classroom and to teach pupils who would not have had previous exposure to computers.

In addition, Gopeesingh said "all 151 secondary schools will have information technology technicians assigned to each one of them" to further assist and educate pupils and teachers on the use of the laptop.