Jones: Mobile Policy Likely By September

BARBADOS:  Government is still addressing the mobile use policy in primary and secondary schools, and it is likely to come to fruition by September 1 this year.

Minister of Education, Ronald Jones, made this disclosure today at a handover ceremony for 160 desks to first formers at Harrison College, Crumpton Street, by the Aron and Christina Truss Foundation.
Mr. Jones stated that the mobile policy would reinforce the Ministry’s other initiatives and encourage sensible use of the technology.
“The policy is there being refined by the stakeholders and hopefully teachers, parents and students will all be on board because it really doesn’t make any sense deploying the internet and hotspots and Wi-Fi… across all of our learning institutions and then you don’t have the capability to utilise that technology,” he explained.
Thanking the Truss Foundation for its philanthropic gesture, Mr. Jones said Government welcomed such efforts, and encouraged other persons to “step up and contribute” to their schools.
“Wherever you have gone to school and [if that has] made an impact on your life, you should be giving back to that educational institution,” the former teacher stated, adding that these could include their primary school, Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic, Community College and the university.
Principal Juanita Wade also lauded the Truss Foundation and said the desks would improve the atmosphere in the classrooms. Acknowledging that her school was aware of the importance of working in tandem with others to achieve its goals, she, like the Minister, called on other benefactors to work not only with HC but other schools.
Mr. Jones, who is also responsible for Science, Technology and Innovation, thanked the Foundation too for the ‘hotspots’ around the school. While he noted they would bring connectivity to students using technology, he, however, urged them not to treat it as a licence to engage “in research that was not necessary for their learning”.
joy-ann.gill@barbados.gov.bb