28,000 laptops from Portugal for schools

Portugal will be donating over 28,000 Intel Classmate laptop computers to St.Vincent and the Grenadines.{{more}}

Yesterday, Monday, September 27, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves disclosed that he had secured commitment from Portugal’s Prime Minister, José Sócrates, to donate the computers.

“Socrates said to me, Ralph how many primary school children you have? I say about fifteen thousand students. He said, well I will give you one for each. I say, but you can’t leave out the secondary school students, I have thirteen [thousand] of those.

“He said I’ll get them for you,” said Gonsalves, noting that the Portuguese Prime Minister told him that they will be assembled in Venezuela.

Andre Bailey, a technical expert in the Ministry of Telecommunications, giving details of the laptop, said it is manufactured in Portugal.

“The interesting thing about this computer is that it is fairly good enough for primary and secondary, possibly tertiary education,” said Bailey.

He disclosed that it has 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 9 inch screen, 30 GB Hard drive, a web cam and WiFi, and is water and shock resistant.

Bailey said the laptop has two operating systems: Windows and a Linus Operating system.

“This laptop, I tested it for over two, three weeks and we found it to be adequate as long as it is going to be used for what it is designed to do,” said Bailey, noting that it is for students to do their homework.

“If it is used for the intended purpose it will provide the quality and speed for doing homework,” said Bailey.