JTA wants e-Learning Jamaica to maintain school computer labs

 

The Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) wants e-Learning Jamaica to implement a maintenance plan to ensure equipment in computer labs at schools are in good working condition.

 

JTA President Leighton Johnson said e-Learning Jamaica has been doing significant work in secondary schools to upgrade computer labs, which were established by the company more than a decade ago.

 

He explained that the upgrade work includes replacing outdated desktop computers with laptops as well as implementing up-to-date software on new devices. 

 

"I can tell you schools have indicated that since 2008, 2009, they still have computers that are working from that batch, but it took a great deal of resources to maintain those computers. We want now e-Learning Jamaica to ensure that there is a maintenance plan that must be implemented to ensure that these labs with these modern and updated tools are maintained. We do not want the labs to fall into disrepair because of a school's inability to maintain the labs," he pleaded, noting that labs in good working order would redound to the benefit of teaching and learning. 

 

Mr. Johnson said some school administrators have been using their own meagre resources to keep computer labs in operation. 

 

"E-Learning Jamaica never had that capacity to take [computers] from the schools, get them repaired, and then get them back into schools. And in some regard, some of these servers required maintenance directly from the provider, you know, directly from the provider overseas. So these are some of the little nuances that we encountered," he explained.

 

He added that some schools have had to create their own servers, at a significant cost, to maintain their computer labs.