Students of the Pembroke Hall High School in St Andrew now have access to a state-of-the-art Huawei Idea Hub Interactive Classroom System to support online/remote learning.
The Idea Hub which was donated by international Information Communication Technology (ICT) firm Huawei Jamaica to the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Information, facilitates intelligent collaboration and other features such as intelligent writing, high-definition video conferencing, interactive whiteboarding, and wireless sharing.
In her address at the official handover of the system on Thursday (November 18) at the school’s Kingston location, Education Minister Fayval Williams said, “Huawei’s Idea Hubs are designed to turn classrooms and open spaces into smart spaces and is perfect for the delivery of online or remote classes,” she said.
Minister Williams noted that the Idea Hub is just one way in which the Ministry is seeking to fulfill its mandate of bringing more technology into the classroom as well as exposing students to new developments in the digital space.
The Education Minister noted that the system is one of two donated by Huawei Jamaica to the Ministry. The second system was handed over to a Clarendon-based secondary school.
In his remarks, Member of Parliament for St Andrew North Western, Dr Nigel Clarke, said the donation of the system is aligned with the government’s objective to create skilled, highly trained human capital.
“It is absolutely clear that the path forward for Jamaica must involve and include human capital improvement and human capital investment… The long-term solution to
Jamaica’s [development] is to radically and transformatively improve the stock of human capital in Jamaica,” he said.
Dr Clarke who is also Minister of Finance and the Public Service said the donation of the interactive classroom system will enable students to be better equipped for the world that they will face.
Emphasising the importance of technology literacy in the digital age, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Huawei Jamaica Bo Zhou, said the donation of the system is intended to expose students to technologies and the skills needed for the labor market of the future.
“Today is just a very small step but we hope that this will help our students in the use of technology, and we hope this will help train local talent and help with Jamaica’s development,” he said.
