REID

If Education Minister Andrew Holness heeds the advice of one of his special advisers, all teachers in Jamaica should be computer literate by 2013.

The recommendation is being put forward by Ruel Reid, Holness' non-resident special adviser on teaching and teacher relations.

Reid made the announcement during a presentation ceremony staged in honour of the first batch of teachers to have attained the required level of competence in the HEART Trust/NTA's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills training course. The training course is a part of the State's multibillion-dollar e-Learning initiative.

Barely literate

"So I am charging my minister (that) in five years time all teachers in Jamaica will be fully computer literate," he said.

After the ceremony, Reid explained that he has not formally put the recommendation to the minister yet.

Late last month, a Sunday Gleaner exclusive revealed that thousands of the nation's public-school teachers are barely computer literate.

The article provided the results of a survey commissioned by e-Learning Jamaica Company Limited (e-ljam) last year which showed that more than 60 per cent of secondary-school teachers were in dire need of computer training suited to novices.

At that time, the education ministry corroborated the findings of the study on a larger scale, admitting that technological inadequacies existed among teachers at every level.

Reid was deputising for Holness as keynote speaker at the function staged on the Marescaux Road grounds of The Mico University College.

Some 334 teachers from high schools and lecturers from Mico completed the course. A similar sized batch is expected to graduate in the next two weeks.