Cybersecurity
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley says while social media has opened up communication in ways people could not have imagined years ago, there is also an urgent need to manage its “darker side”.
He said yesterday cybersecurity remained high on the Government’s agenda, and that securing the nation’s pupils from the harmful elements of new digital technologies was also top priority.
Rowley was delivery the feature address at the launch of the Ministry of Education’s digital transformation programme, MOE Access, at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad) hotel in Port of Spain.
He said at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, social media platforms kept many people in touch with their families and friends, even those living in other countries or dying without contact with the rest of their family.
“Social media platforms have become facilitators of the sharing of information, enabled the development of virtual communities, and even acted as drivers for micro entrepreneurship,” the Prime Minister said. “There is also an urgent need to manage its darker side, as evidenced by growing concerns over online safety, cybercrime and social engineering, and the increase spread of deliberate misinformation called fake news,” he lamented.
“We have a responsibility to ensure that we manage the introduction of new digital technologies in an orderly and responsible manner, lest uncertainty becomes concern, concern becomes doubt, and doubt becomes paranoia,” he added.
Securing students
The Prime Minister said, in collaboration with leading global experts, the Government, via the Ministry of Digital Transformation, was exploring ways to strengthen rules governing cybersecurity. “We will place every mechanism in place to secure our students and keep them from exposure to harmful elements, as far as we are able to. We will also equip them with knowledge so they can either avoid these risks, or know how to address them, if they do present themselves in their lives,” he said.
“There will be multiple levels of protection and awareness campaigns to build our national cybersecurity literacy levels,” Rowley stated.
The Sunday Express earlier this month published an expose on the prevalence of child grooming perpetrated by adult men on social media platforms. In a matter of hours, the fake Facebook profile of 15-year-old “Selina Ali” created by the Sunday Express was met with hundreds of messages from adult men that ranged from disturbing to odd.
The fake profile was subjected to explicit imagery from one adult male who claimed to be a plumber, at least one photo of self-harm, and a number of others attempting to meet with the child, gather information about her whereabouts and family life, or call or video-chat with her.
On the Government’s digital transformation thrust, the Prime Minister said he recently saw a commentator express that while it was a good thing to have a Ministry of Digital Transformation, “nothing eh happening”.
“But again this is T&T, because you don’t know, you don’t put yourself in a position to know, nothing eh happening,” he said.
Rowley said this year the Government’s proposed investment in digitalisation and digitisation projects across the public sector was more than $437 million—an increase of 30 per cent over 2022.
“That should indicate the pace at which we are going, and the importance of the prioritisation of digital transformation in our nation,” he said.
MOE Access
Delivery opening remarks at the launch, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education Kurt Meyer noted that currently there are 18 projects under the ministry’s digital transformation programme.
Among them is the integrated human resources information system (IHRIS), the online retrieval of Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) results and a pupil-management system.
Meyer said new projects were being conceptualised daily, based on client/pupil need.
“The point is we have come very far, but we have more work to do,” he stated.
Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said while MOE Access was formally launched yesterday, the ministry had been quietly but consistently adding digital solutions to its day-to-day operations. “MOE Access means cost efficiencies, time efficiencies and operational efficiencies,” she said.
She said that from a pilot project that began in January 2023, over 1,600 IHRIS leave applications had been generated.
The main users were teachers who no longer had to commute from communities like Toco, Icacos and Guayaguyare to a district head office to submit paperwork, she said.
She said approvals for leave had been reduced from weeks and months to same day; and in some cases, minutes.
Gadsby-Dolly recalled that while she was a University of the West Indies student, she worked in the paysheets section of the Ministry of Education and had to painstakingly write out duplicate pay slips.
“People had to travel to Port of Spain and we had to painstakingly write out a duplicate pay slip. So when I speak to over 13,000 employees accessing over 160,000 payslips by the click of a button, it truly resonates with me the ease that this has brought to our teaching service,” she stated.
Last year, parents and pupils were able to access SEA results via an online portal.
This year, Gadsby-Dolly said, SEA results would be downloadable in PDF format, with secondary school principals having immediate digital access to the list of children assigned to their schools.
“Paper has been completely removed from the process,” she said.
