25,000 pupils in T’ganu to get laptops next year
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Star
KUALA TERENGGANU: Carrying heavy school bags to school would be a thing of the past for 25,000 Year Five pupils when they receive a laptop computer each from the Terengganu state government next year.
Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said the pilot scheme, aimed at reducing the burden of school children who carry heavy book loads to school, would cost the state government RM30mil for the purchase of computers from Intel Electronics. The laptops would become the pupils’ electronic text books.
”By April next year, we expect to distribute laptops to 25,000 Year Five pupils who will use them in place of books with text incorporated into their laptops through the cooperation of Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka (DBP).
”After buying the first batch of computers, we will work with Intel to set up a factory in Gong Badak to produce similar laptop computers for those in Year Four, Three, Two and One. We expect to produce 10,000 units a month,” said Ahmad Tuesday after handing out prizes to winners of the Cleanest Schools in Terengganu competition, at Wisma Darul Iman here.
Also present was state Education, Higher Education, Human Resource, Science and Technology committee chairman Ahmad Razif Abdul Rahman.
He added that by three to four years, all primary school children in Terengganu would be equipped with laptops to eliminate the burden of carrying heavy school bags.
To cater for the transformation in the mode of teaching which will be the first of its kind in the country, Ahmad said the state government would enroll more than 100 graduates in the field of information technology to train school children and teachers on ways to use the laptops that would become electronic books. - Bernama
