Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty inaugurated the distribution of laptops to students in the tribal belts on Friday.
The laptops are being provided as the government plans to start online classes as a follow-up to the digital classes telecast on KITE Victers channel.
Initially, laptops will be made available to all Class X students belonging to the Scheduled Tribe category. After the upcoming Plus One examinations, the students graduating to Plus Two will also receive laptops. This will be followed by distribution of laptops to students of Classes VIII and IX. In the following phase, students in Classes V, VI and VII will receive laptops.
High-tech project
The laptops provided to schools earlier as part of the high-tech project will be given to the tribal students.
Tribal students will receive laptops the way they get library books through school. While the number of ST students who lacked digital equipment was 43,952, this came down to 37,715 in September.
The Minister said laptops taken back from schools for distribution to tribal students would be replaced by new ones. Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has been entrusted with further proceedings.
Students would also be provided with new laptops by including them under schemes, including those of the Scheduled Tribe Development Department, the Minister said.
