Old Harbour Primary to get state-of-the art ICT room

An agreement signed on Tuesday between Digicel Foundation and the Ministry of Education and Youth will see the telecoms company spending, cumulatively, US$500,000 to establish state-of-the-art information and communications technology (ICT) rooms at Old Harbour Primary School in St Catherine and nine other schools.

This forms part of the foundation’s multimillion-dollar investment initiative to equip 10 primary schools in different parts of the country with the digital capacity to bolster the learning experience of students at the primary level.

Digicel Chief Executive Officer Charmaine Daniels described the investment as significant and highlighted as an important consideration the ability of the management at the school to maintain the project after the investment is made.

“We try to be very deliberate in the management of the school to make sure it’s a very progressive team that buys into the vision. Not all schools and not all principals are open to digital as we would love,” Daniels stated.

“Another factor is, we knew Digicel Plus was coming to Old Harbour and that would have given us the ability to partner with them to get Internet free for the school for two years at the speeds that we needed,” Daniels further stated.

According to her, the idea behind this level of investment ties into one of the policies of the foundation, which is to invest in communities that are expanding, using budgetary allocations that are protected.

“One thing I can tell you is that our budget is protected. It is not an organisation that looks at the amount of profit made and then say the foundation can get this amount. We know our budget year in year out and that is the budget we use to do projects,” Daniels articulated.

Construction Manager for Digicel Foundation Carnel Campbell said after studying the proposal from the Old Harbour Primary School, there was a clear need for the ICT wing.

“I feel challenged and motivated to give you a project that is considered state-of-the-art, and feeling like a part of this family makes me want to complete the project in a timely manner.”

The project is expected to be completed by January 2023.

Campbell said the space, which is an empty room provided by the school, will be retrofitted with 24 devices broken down into 12 laptops and 12 tablets, plus a smart screen for the teacher’s interaction with students, after the upgrade of the physical surroundings which the foundation will undertake as part of the project.

According to him, each device will have a headset attached to ensure that students do not affect each other when they are utilising the space.

Ministry of Education Regional 6 Director Sophia Forbes-Hall, who signed the agreement on behalf of the Ministry of Education, said the project is very significant, especially for the Old Harbour Primary School.

“With COVID-19, schools would have lost revenues, so it limits their ability to implement significant projects like these,” she said.

Forbes-Hall zeroed in on the expanding Old Harbour community which she claimed posed severe limitations on space in the primary school, hence the need for the project.

Principal George Goode said the project will form the pilot for other schools in Region 6 to emulate.

He stressed the importance of members of the Old Harbour community getting the opportunity to utilise the facility.

“This is what schools are about – community involvement,” he told The Gleaner.