By Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Mon. May 16, 2022
On Friday, May 13, Sadie Vernon Technical High School in Belize City received 260 Dell laptops from the Social Investment Fund (SIF), through funding from the Caribbean Development Bank and the assistance of the Ministry of Education.
The donation is a part of the Ministry of Education’s initiative to equip five high schools on the Southside of Belize City with technical equipment that was initially aimed at enabling students of the educational institution to participate in hybrid learning during the COVID pandemic but will continue to be useful, despite the complete return to the classroom.
“How they will be used? Definitely to be in our computer labs, because currently we have outdated machines that are moving quite slow, and so my students will benefit definitely from our two labs to use them in that. So, that’s the plan. We do technology-connected lessons, so, with that, they will be able to use it not only for the business subjects and the subjects that are like information technology or the computer literacy courses,” said the principal of Sadie Vernon Technical High School, Deborah Martin.
The Chief Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, Yolanda Gongora, mentioned, upon the handing over of the laptops that the ministry, in its distribution of such equipment, is particularly focusing on the needs of students who are less privileged than others.
“We want to ensure that we want to continue to offer the needs of our students, the welfare for our students, the access for our students, the equity. We may not, at this point, provide for every single student but we are able to for some that have the needs more than others. It’s important for us to identify the needs of our students as we move forward in this new time,” outlined Gongora.
Sadie Vernon High School is one of five schools that will be receiving such donations. The other four schools are Maud Williams High School, Gwen Lizarraga High School, Belize Rural High School, and Bella Vista High School in the Toledo District.
The total value of the donation was 679,393.95 BZD—$645,424.25 of which was donated by the Caribbean Development Bank, while the Government of Belize contributed 33,969.70 BZD.