Pilot launched for students to access courses on Internet
A pilot project through which Jamaican students will be able to learn courses via the Internet, was launched Monday by a North American company — Click A Tutor Inc — at the Tivoli Gardens Comprehensive High School in Kingston.
A second project was expected to be launched yesterday at the Penwood High School, also in Kingston, and the third is scheduled for the Tacky High School in St Mary was being considered for the third pilot, according to Ravi Thomas, president and CEO of Click A Tutor Inc. As of next month, individual parents will be able to have access to the service.
Click A Tutor, which offers complete high school online courses to Grades four -12 public, private and home school students in Canada and the United States, added the Jamaican high school curriculum to its website a month ago, Thomas said.
Jamaican students will also be able to access the North American curricula on Click A Tutor which has been approved by the National Association of Private Schools in the US to give school leaving certificates.
In preparing subject courses taught in Jamaican high schools for the website which has no advertising or chat room, Click A Tutor was guided by the curriculum on the Ministry of Education website, Thomas said.
A feature of the website is the availability of live tutors 24 hours a day to answer questions. The website also has a library and questions asked by other children and the answers are also stored in the system.
“The website will offer to Jamaican children, world-class education resources that can narrow the digital divide and bring them on the same level playing-field with children in any developed country,” Thomas told the Observer.
The annual membership fee for North American students to access Click A Tutor is US$150 annually, but through the sponsorship of two Jamaicans living in Canada and Jamaica Labour Party councillor, Robert Montaque, the cost to children in the pilot schools will be J$50 annually.
In the computer laboratory at the Tivoli Gardens Comprehensive High School, the children will be able to access the website by using the school’s password.
Wayne McBean who resided in Tivoli Gardens before migrating to Canada, was made aware of Click A Tutor, by Errol Barnswell, a friend from Clarendon.
“Errol approached me about sponsoring a pilot project for Jamaica, and I thought it could benefit the island,” McBean said.
Tivoli Gardens was chosen for the pilot because the inner-city high school has a “good computer laboratory” and students from a wide cross section of economic backgrounds, Montaque said.
Barnswell recalled that an illiterate farm worker he sat beside on a flight to Jamaica from Canada, motivated him to participate in a project that could make education more available to Jamaican students.
“On a flight to Jamaica I sat beside a farmworker. He couldn’t fill out the immigration form or sign his name. I thought something was wrong. When Ravi told me what he was doing, I called Montaque, my college mate from the Passley Gardens Agricultural School (now the College of Agricultural Science and Education (CASE),” Barnswell said.