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Good practice Imported

One Laptop per Student Initiative

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · Kingstown · See the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 85% 48/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since 2014, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' Ministry of Education has distributed Acer laptops and tablets aiming to give every secondary student a device, corroborated by five independent sources — though budget, cumulative totals and outcome evaluations remain unpublished.

317 laptops
Laptops distributed at programme launch (24 June 2014)
12500 laptops
Target laptops for secondary-school population
One Laptop per Student Initiative

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Ministry of Education, Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Period
2014-present
Keywords
school digitalisation, 1:1 device access, digital literacy, education technology

Context

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a small Eastern Caribbean nation of about 100,000 people with schools spread across the mainland and Grenadine islands, faced a persistent digital divide among secondary students.

Objectives

The Ministry of Education aimed to provide every secondary-school student with a laptop, later extending device provision to primary Grades 5-6 and Community College students via tablets.

Activities

The programme launched publicly in June 2014 with distribution of laptops (brokered via Dennis Publishing with Microsoft and Acer) at West St. George Secondary School, and continued in further phases, including a tablet shipment reported in April 2021 despite disruption from the La Soufrière volcanic eruption.

Results

The Ministry of Education's website currently describes secondary-level laptop coverage as effectively universal; the 12,500-laptop target and the programme's existence are corroborated by local and international media and a 2024 CTU/ECLAC regional report, but no cumulative distribution total against the target, budget figures, or independent evaluation of learning outcomes has been published.

Conclusions

The initiative is best read as a long-running, well-corroborated device-access programme without a published assessment of its educational impact.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Device procurement and distribution (targeting 12,500 secondary-school laptops in a country of about 100,000 people) via vendor partnerships; no public budget figures found.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Launched June 2014 with further distribution phases reported at least through 2021; described as ongoing, with coverage now near-universal at secondary level.
Staffing & skills
Devices sourced through a broker (Dennis Publishing) with vendor partners Microsoft and Acer, Distribution managed by the Ministry of Education in phases

Conditions for success

  • Vendor partnerships (Microsoft, Acer) to supply devices at scale
  • Phased rollout to extend coverage across mainland and outer islands
  • Continuity of distribution despite disruptions (e.g., the 2021 volcanic eruption)

Common failure modes

  • No independent evaluation of learning-outcome effects has been published, even years after rollout
  • No disclosed budget or cumulative distribution total against the 12,500-device target

Where it fits

Governance type
national government-led with private vendor partnership
Scale
national, small island state (approx. 100,000 population)
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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