Opposition Leader: 'We were preparing children for the digital age'

THE laptop initiative which began under the People’s Partnership (PP) government aimed at preparing students for the digital age given the world is moving towards an integrated digital economy based on renewable energies, artificial intelligence and automation.

Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar made the comments as she criticised the changes in policy made by the government.

"That is why we gave the children laptops to prepare them for the digital age. These fellas so duncey head, they took away the laptops. They don’t care about the children. They don’t care because they can afford laptops and tablets for their children."

Speaking at the United National Congress’s (UNC) Monday Night Forum at Preysal High School in Couva, she told supporters the country faces challenges in growing and maintaining revenues, jobs and expenditure.

She paraphrased from this country’s first prime minister Dr Eric Williams, who once said the future of the nation is in the children's schoolbags.

"That was then. The future of the nation is on laptops. We had started with the plan to use e-books, and all the books could have been on a flash drive."

The PP bought 73,000 laptops for students, who were allowed to take them home. Last year, the Education Ministry announced each school would get 50 laptops, to be kept on school premises.

Speaking on the economic and global reality in TT on Monday night, Persad-Bissessar said by 2040, most developed countries would have phased out combustion engines in favour of electric vehicles. Countries would change power generation to renewable energy instead of fossil fuels and plastics for consumer use will be replaced by environmentally-friendly materials.

She said supplies of oil and gas from new producers such as Guyana and the US would decrease the demand and prices for TT’s energy products – oil and gas.

She shared some of the UNC’s plans for implementation upon its "return to service in 2020."

These plans, she said, are to improve the economy to increase productive capacity, increase foreign direct investment, increase the ease of doing business and create jobs.

One of the plans is to lower corporate taxes to a minimum of 18 per cent over the next five years.

"There is a famous saying: You cannot tax a nation into prosperity. Businesses know best how to utilise their own money for growth. We should not overtax them only to attempt to return said taxation in misdirected subsidies."

Saying the UNC is committed to democracy and to protecting citizens’ rights, she vowed to fight for all citizens.

She repeatedly bashed Dr Keith Rowley and the Government, saying they continue to fail citizens. She referred to Rowley’s "new society" as a tyrant’s society where he acts like a king and lords and ladies exist.

"Maybe that’s why he moved with such haste to refurbish Whitehall. He wanted to fulfil the prophecy of his book: From Mason Hall to Whitehall.

"Thanks for fixing up Whitehall, we will be the next government and we will make great use of it."

Whitehall, on the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain, is the original home of the Office of the Prime Minister.