7 News Belize

The Tale Of The Tablet
posted (February 26, 2015)
We caught up with Yma Casey Gordon at the UB Gynmasium in Belmopan while the Ministry of Education was continuing the distribution of the ASUS computer Tablets.

As we've reported, the giveaway to the tertiary students started on Tuesday - but since then we've seen at least one for sale online. We asked Casey about this and the question of whether the tablets should have been distributed strictly on a needs basis:

Yma Casey Gordon - Education Information Officer, MOE
"We had a total of about 1200 students and this is at the UB Belmopan Campus. Up to date we are on our second day. We have one more day left and we have about 400 tablets left to distribute."

Daniel Ortiz
"Ma'am, some have made issue of the fact that there are some students who qualify who don't particularly need the tablet. Was there any sort of screening done or is there any sort of policy on that, because you don't need the tablet, means you don't necessarily received it from the Ministry of Education?"

Yma Casey Gordon - Education Information Officer, MOE
"Let's put it this way. I don't know anybody who has been given a gift - if you're been given a gift, if you have the right to say no - you don't want to receive the gift - it's a gift and the gift is being given in good faith. So, I wouldn't want to go into the details as to who deserves a tablet or who doesn't. It's a gift and we are very happy that our students are in a positive way, grateful and thankful for this gift."

Reporter
"What is the ministry's response to reports of people who are selling their tablets?"

Yma Casey Gordon - Education Information Officer, MOE
"There are times when whatever it is that you seem to do, there are always going to be some kickback - some negative feedbacks, but the overall feedback is resounding, its positive and we are looking forward to more healthy feedback."

And there's another angle on the story - this one related to politics. As we told you last night, political operators start pressing the panic button whenever it gets close to a major election. Today, a senior elected official in the opposition told the media that personnel from the Ministry of Education was passing on copies of the forms filled out by students receiving the tablets to the UDP Secretariat. The secretariat in turn was contacting the new tablet owners about the upcoming election - or, so the story went. We asked the Education Officer about it, and she told us that there is no way that this is happening:

Daniel Ortiz
"It's unconfirmed, but do you have any such information which suggests exactly what we are asking about?"

Yma Casey Gordon - Education Information Officer, MOE
"Well I want to say that this is the first time, as a matter of fact, this is breaking news to me. I want to take the opportunity to say that the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, continue to act in confidence and I am certain that, that is nothing but farfetched."

Daniel Ortiz
"But is that a breach of confidentiality if it has happened?"

Yma Casey Gordon - Education Information Officer, MOE
"Well, certainly it would be, but allow me to say again, that the Ministry of Education is acting in full confidence and that is something that would never occurred."

We also reached Education Minister Patrick Faber, and UDP Party Chairman Alberto August. They both categorically denied that anything like this has happened or will happen. August told us that this is only propaganda from the Opposition Party to try to discredit the UDP's hard work. Faber told us that the information is entered into the Ministry of Finance's Smart Stream system - and form there, his ministry's staff has no contact with it. We independently contacted various students who received tablets when we were there and they said no political party had contacted them.

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