The scene at Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School in Chetpet, recently, resembled a pageant, but of somewhat miniature proportions. Students accompanied by their elders, walked down, carrying two brown cartons that contained a laptop and a bag to carry it.
Some were impatient to see what a laptop looked like and opened the cartons as they walked out of classrooms. For a majority, it was a present that landed a few weeks ahead of their class XII results.
Over 300 class XII students of the school were presented with laptops as part of an initiative by the State government to provide class XII students and final-year engineering students with free laptops. Some parents were more thrilled than the students, as they were seeing a laptop for the first time.
P.J. Christmas, who was on a holiday in Thoothukudi, did not mind returning early to accompany his son Wesley Simon, who is hearing-impaired. “My son was asking me to buy him a laptop once the results were declared, so this has come as double bonanza,” said Mr. Christmas.
Nearly 28,000 class XII students of 152 schools in the city will receive free laptops in the first phase of distribution, which began on September 15.
