Tomorrow October 29, 2020, the Minister of Education, Hon Patrick Faber will be conducting the distribution of the tablets promised by the government to be utilized for distance education. The distribution starts in the Cayo and Belize District. An initial 5,000 tablets arrived in the country one week ago, and they have been prepared for distribution. The remainder of the tablets will be arriving in the country at a later and the same process of preparing the tablets for distribution will occur before they are distributed.

Press Conference: Ministry of Education distributes tablets for E-Learning.

The first shipment of those long-awaited computer tablets promised by the Ministry of Education have finally arrived and will be distributed to 5,000 students most in need.

These tablets will help to bridge the digital divide for high school students who are distance learning.

And while it may seem convenient that the tablets are being distributed just before the election, the Education Minister insists it has nothing to do with politics.

In fact, Patrick Faber keyed in on this deflection during the first virtual handover ceremony held at the Sacred Heart Auditorium in Cayo.

"The plan that was scheduled would have seen forty-three of our secondary schools receive those digital devices. But the in a way, COVID helped us to fast track what we're doing here today and so while in many respects we can complain about covid, in this respect I want to thank Mr COVID for helping us to make the point that this the direction that we ought to go and the direction which we ought to have been going from a very long time ago. These devices, my friends, come to us out of monies that were initially scheduled from the Inter-American Development Bank for other activities including the very same type of initiative that we're doing now although all of this amount of money, the seven million dollars, would not have been spent on procuring devices alone. In all of my thirteen - February will make thirteen years of my leadership of the Ministry of Education, Minister of Education noh call ina no scandal. That is because I have managed the resources given under my watch in the best way that i know how to make sure that those resources are utilized for all in the education system. And we've taken out the politics of things so they can't ever accuse this administration and this minister of corruption but because we are doing what we're doing this morning and it's putting a damper into some political plans of people, they're trying to call it a scam but I don't preside over scams. The next batch will probably come right around the week of elections so some people wah have heart failure because of that but it's not politics."

First and fourth form students were given priority during this first phase. There are 15,000 tablets in total to be distributed- and there is a schedule to do so with virtual ceremonies on the daily in each district - resuming into Belize City tomorrow.

Channel 7

Video: Ministry of Education distributes tablets for E-Learning.

Another distribution today in Corozal...