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by Deanna Cole - Wednesday, 13 November 2019, 11:18 PM

Number of replies: 0

By and large the Caribbean is on the right path to the integration of ICT in the classroom. This is particularly true of the larger economies like Jamaica who spend approximately 5.5% of their GDP towards education according to Unesco. This is fairly on par with larger countries like the US that spends about 6% of its GDP.

I believe we have the intent to create educational programs that are on par with the rest of the world and are inclusive of ICT. For example the creation of orgnizations like E Learning Jamaica Limted to accelerate ICT in schools and the educational training programs on ICT available from the Heart Trust NTA are great steps forward.

Now it is understood we do have challenges like the need for more funding, additional training, the proliferation on island wide internet and the need for more ICT equipment however we are going in the right direction.

At the end of the day we simply need more funding so the advocates of ICT can push us further into the deployment of ICT in our schools. In addition we need to drive more innovation so ICT is used. For example I would recommend we create classes where ICT technology are used in all class work. This would be practical in the secondary school levels, potentiall in the last two years of high school.It is noted this takes money.

To create this financial back bone to get this done we must assertivel look at increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco products as well as gambling. We need to increase our expectations that major telecomm providers provide free services to schools that are in there service areas. If we get serious about revenue generation we can plow those funds back in accelerating the use of ICT in our schools. With this back ground we can blend the use of ICT and traditional teaching methods to create the best opportunities for our young minds.

References

Jamaica spending on education as a percentage of GDP. 2017 Trading Economics. Retrieved from https://tradingeconomics.com/jamaica/public-spending-on-education-total-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html