The State government of Haryana has announced to distribute free-of-cost mobile Tablets to the students of class 8 to 12. The government has planned to spent more then 500 Crore rupees for providing digital devices to around 8.06 lakh students of the government-Aided schools.
The announcement has been made by the State Education Minister Kanwar Pal in a press conference at Yamuna Nagar held on Friday, May 28. He said that government has taken this step to facilitate online education of children during the COVID-19 pandemic and the schools being closed.
He added that tablets will be offered free-of-cost to every student irrespective of their families caste,community and financial background. The government completely opposes discrimination on the basis of caste system which is being practised in the state since a long time.
Mr. Pal mentioned that a report on this scheme was prepared by the state education ministry and sent to the Chief Minister. The ministry has received approval and sanction over the report on Wednesday from the CM Office. Now the tenders for tablets of over 500 Crore rupees will be released soon.
When asked about the motive of this scheme, Mr. Pal said that a large number of students in the state lacks the facility of access to digital devices like mobile phones, tablets and computer. Many of their parents even can’t afford them. Haryana has a major population residing in rural areas which still lacks the awareness about online education.
So the state has decided to facilitate students with the gadgets so that they won’t be left behind while competing with other students in the race of online learning. This would definitely help them to regain confidence and engage better in studies by this new methods.
The education ministry has started online classes since last year due to the pandemic and has found encouraging results. The education minister has earlier said that online learning is only solution to ensure uninterrupted education during this tough times and thus it should be encouraged more.