Laptops to be firewalled

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – Software designed to block access to “bad” websites will be installed in the laptops promised to Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) pupils, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said.Persad-Bissessar said the software firewall would prevent pupils from accessing negative websites.She was speaking at a People’s Partnership campaign meeting in Siparia on Sunday night.Persad-Bissessar promised to fulfil every promise made during the general election campaign.“We have made promises to you on the campaign trail. I will do everything I can to make sure we keep that promise. The Minister of Education tells me we are well on the way to keeping it, now tonight I may say if it takes us a week or two or three, be assured that promise will be kept,” she said. Persad-Bissessar dismissed complaints that the computers would only distract the youths.“When parents have the money, they buy the laptops for their children; they give them computers so why shouldn’t the poor parents and the poor family also have a laptop?” she asked.Persad-Bissessar said she would work with the Ministry of Education to ensure that firewalls were installed in every computer to prevent the pupils from accessing “bad sites”.She admitted that the cost of installing the software in all computers was high, but Persad-Bissessar said she was committed to providing the pupils with the technology.“That’s a promise that we will keep, even if it takes us at least two, three weeks in September, they will get those laptops.”Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh said last week that it would cost government million to purchase laptop computers and more money was needed to install the software.(Trinidad Express)