More schools around the country will benefit from the One Laptop per Child Program next year, said the Minister for Education, Filipe Bole.
He visited students of Veiuto Primary School and made this announcement while encouraging them to gain exposure from the program as part of their learning process.
The minister, who has been touring OLPC schools in Suva this week, also visited Lami Primary and Kalabu Primary School today.
While speaking to students at Veiuto, Mr Bole urged them to make the best use of the opportunities provided to them so that they could reach university level in future.
Mr Bole reiterated that Government is strictly committed to making education accessible to all Fijians for the betterment of the country.
The minister also officially opened the school’s newly established $20,000 computer lab, which is being used by students from classes 1-8.
“It is very encouraging to see that all the students have adapted to learning through the use of the XOs laptops under the OLPC programme. It is a new programme for the schools in Fiji but the response from the students has been overwhelming,” Mr Bole said.
Fifteen schools in the country are already benefiting from the OLPC programme, under which each school is provided 40 laptops.
“Next year, we will get 2000 additional computers and introduce the OLPC programme in another 50 schools. We want to introduce this programme in as many primary schools as we can so we would need about 200,000 computers for that,” Mr Bole said.
Mr Bole also advised the students to ask for assistance from their teachers when they come across any difficulties rather than pressing wrong buttons on the laptops.
The head teacher, Mr Mohammed Hanif said the programme was introduced at their school about a month ago and the students are excited about it.
“We have 26 classes at Veiuto and each class uses the lab once a week according to the designed timetable. The Ministry of Education will help us in upgrading the programmes on the laptops. We are really grateful to the ministry for the assistance provided,” Mr Hanif said.
The school roll at Veiuto Primary is 962.
-ENDS-