In response to persistent demands from school teachers in Kerala, the ‘IT@School’ programme has readied a scheme for making available laptops and netbooks at subsidised rates for up to 50,000 teachers.
“Under this scheme laptops will be available for Rs. 17,770 and netbooks for Rs. 11,450. This is 37 per cent and 36 per cent respectively, less than the current market prices for these machines”, Executive Director of the ‘IT@School’ Anvar Sadath said.
“We want the laptop and the netbook to be as integral a part of a teacher’s handbag as the lunch box is,” Mr. Sadath added.
The potential mass purchase of laptops or netbooks by teachers is expected to give a big boost to the ICT-embedded teaching-learning system in schools to which Kerala is moving. Already all high schools and higher secondary schools in the State have ICT equipment including PC/laptops and projectors since 2008. Till 2009-10, over 7500 laptops have been provided to these schools as part of the “ICT in Schools Scheme.” In 2010-11, 8000 laptops and 6000 netbooks would be distributed.
However, all these machines had to be shared by teachers in a school. Once a good number of teachers have laptops / netbooks of their own, it will be easier for them to ICT-enable their teaching process. Moreover, the generation and sharing of digital content will become much easier at the ‘teacher empowerment’ programmes which are organised each month in the State. More than two lakh teachers receive subject-specific at these two-day events.
The Laptops which are powered with processors ranging from Celeron M 900 to Pentium Dual Core, would have 2 GB DDR 3 RAM, 160 GB Hard Disc, Integrated DVD RW, Integrated Wireless Facility and also a minimum battery backup of two hours. In the case of netbooks, the processor would be Intel Atom N455@1.66 GHz, along with 1 GB DDR3 RAM, 160 GB Hard disc and Integrated Wireless Facility with a backup time of up to 6 hours.
A specialty of this scheme is that the laptops and netbooks would come with a warranty for three years; this includes the battery and the power adaptor. Also, the companies would ensure adequate service support to the teachers, including their call centre and web portal service facilities.
The laptops and netbooks will be pre-loaded with the IT@School’s version of Edubuntu, office packages, graphics applications and other educational software.
For a teacher to be able to participate in this scheme, the head of the institution concerned should certify that the teacher has received training in IT and that he or she also uses IT in the classroom. Teachers of Lower Primary and Upper Primary sections who are yet to receive IT training also can participate in the scheme provided they give an undertaking that they would get trained in IT before June 2011. Teachers should also undertake that machines purchased under this scheme would not be used for any other purpose and that they would not be sold.
The draft concept note of the scheme is available at the website of IT@School Project, www.itschool.gov.in. Any comments or suggestions can be mailed to ‘support@itschool.gov.in’ till January 13.
The road shows are expected to be organised from January 25 to February 10. Teachers who wish to participate should apply online to the ‘IT@School’ between January 15 and January 25. The supply of the laptops and netbooks will be completed by March 2011.
Based on the response received to this scheme the ‘IT@School’ would consider facilitating the purchase of Multimedia Projectors, Printers, scanners, handicams and digital cameras at reduced rates, Mr. Sadath added.
