The Ministry of Education, as always, is completely unorganized. 8,200 laptops and tablets purchased for disadvantaged students sit in schools, the delivery to students halted indefinitely. Sutel purchased this equipment for $5.4 million.
The equipment was purchased to bridge the technological gap among students. At the beginning of the year, some of the equipment was delivered to an indigenous territory in Turrialba.
Many of the other computers, however, never reached the hands of students. The problem is the MEP was unable to identify those in need. Some, for example, were already given computers by another program, the Omar Dengo Foundation. The MEP was also unsure of who was and who wasn’t receiving help from the Mixed Institute of Social Assistance (IMAS) because of an outdated database of the Information System and Single Registry of Beneficiaries of the State.
It is thought that at the start of the Covid pandemic, there were 500,000 students without a way to connect to virtual classes. That was later reduced to 215,000. There are still thousands of students without computers and others with computers but without internet. There needs to be an organized effort to get the computers and tablets to the students who need them.
The MEP wants to leave the equipment in schools, but this does nothing to bridge the gap between those who can study online from home and those who cannot, reducing the digital divide, which was the purpose of spending public funds to purchase the devices.
