KINGSTON, Jamaica — Dr Andrew Wheatley, the Opposition spokesperson for Science, ICT and Digital Economy Development, is recommending that portfolio Minister Phillip Paulwell institute a rewards programme that he says will help to reduce student’s circumvention of security measures put in place to prevent access to inappropriate content on tablets.

The tablets were issued to students as part of the Government’s Tablets in Schools initiative.

“I am recommending a rewards programme called the Program for Enhancing Tablet Security in Schools (PETSS). PETSS will see rewards being given to students who discover security gaps and bring them to the attention of their teachers and the project administrators,” Wheatly said during his Sectoral Debate presentation in the House of Representatives Tuesday.

Wheatly stressed the importance of encouraging young minds to “engender an ethical hacker mentality, instead of an unethical hacker mentality”.

He said: “The value in a programme like this is that the users of the technology become contributors to the success of the technology. This is in keeping with the Opposition’s view that we must cultivate a culture of being not only consumers of technology but producers as well.”

Meanwhile, Opposition spokesperson for Education, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith supported Dr Wheatley’s recommendation in light of increasing reports of students working around the security measures that were put in place to prevent access to inappropriate content on the tablets.

She pointed out that even before the programme had been launched, the Opposition had questioned the minister on issues of security of the tablet devices, including the matter of access to inappropriate content.

“We were assured that there was nothing to be worried about as the necessary safeguards were put in place, but the ingenuity of our children’s young minds has again been demonstrated, and major security gaps discovered in what was deemed a bullet-proof system. If the programme is to succeed in its educational goals, then proper use of the tablets must be safeguarded,” she said.