KINGSTON, Jamaica— “Access to data, internet service and smart devices must be treated as a basic human right for every Jamaican household,” Member of Parliament for St Catherine East Central, Alando Terrelonge said.

Terrelonge, who is also the Minister of State in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, made his position known during his recent contribution to the State of the Constituency Debate in the House of Representatives.

He said such a human right should be “no different from the right to water as a means of survival in this the age of the 4th industrial revolution, the age of technology”.

Delivering his presentation under the theme ‘Realising the Hope of Prosperity through Education’ Terrelonge said: “We recognise in East Central that it is incumbent on us to increase digital literacy”.

To this end, he said 200 students were presented with smart devices which he described as a “big win for us in East Central”.

“And we are already making plans to award another 150 students with more devices. This is important, as since the onset of COVID-19, how we educate, as well as how we deliver quality education to our young kings and queens, has changed. COVID highlighted many gaps in our education system, chief amongst them, the imbalance between the haves and the have-nots,” Terrelonge added.

He lauded the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Technology through its agency, the Universal Service Fund “for recognising this right of all Jamaicans”. The state minister noted that under the education ministry’s Own Your Own Device initiative, 40,000 students across Jamaica will have access to smart devices, while under the Community Wi-Fi Programme of the technology ministry, 189 communities will benefit from free Wi-Fi service.

“So not only are we rolling out the smart devices and putting technology and the world into the hands of our young kings and queens, as a responsible government poised for a prosperous future, in preparing our young kings and queens to be the leaders of tomorrow, we are giving them access to data and the internet so they and their families and communities can connect their devices in their communities,” Terrelonge stated.