By Alicia Chamely
UPGRADED high-speed Wi-Fi is soon to be in schools across Trinidad and Tobago as the Ministry of Education works to modernise schooling.
This was announced on Thursday by Education Minister Dr Michael Dowlath at a post-cabinet press conference, held at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s.
Dowlath said, “I want to announce that the cabinet has agreed to the upgrade of wireless access solutions for primary schools and secondary schools.”
He said, “This project of implementing an upgrade of the wireless solutions in primary and secondary schools has a dual aim. It seeks to address the inadequate wireless connectivity across the nation’s schools, through the expansion of bandwidth at 125 government and government-assisted secondary schools and the installation of network access points at the 454 government and government-assisted primary schools.”
Dowlath said 125 secondary schools would benefit from an expanded bandwidth at 500 MBps download speed and 250 MBps upload speed.
He said with this broadening of connectivity, more students and teachers would be able to participate in e-learning, e-testing, and other digital educational activities.
Dowlath said the initiative further supported the government’s “thrust to supply all income form one students with laptops for the 2025/2026 academic year.”
To support the upgrade, he said, there would be a structured implementation of the cabling and commercial-grade wireless access points.
Dowlath said the overall aim of the initiative was “to improve teacher training, to modernise the curriculum and to prepare our students for the future.”
“The use of technology in education allows for improved student productivity, enhanced outcomes and proficiency,” he added.
Dowlath confirmed that in conjunction with the Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence, safeguards would be placed to ensure students could not access inappropriate web content.
He further added the Ministry of Education would be able to monitor the usage of the Wi-Fi in the schools.
Regarding laptops for Form One students, Dowlath stated that, as he had previously announced, the 18,000 laptops secured by the Ministry would start being distributed towards the end of September.
