Three more months — that's how long students and teachers of Class VIII in Andhra Pradesh will need to wait to receive tablet computers (tabs) as was promised by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
The State government had made the announcement that it will be distributing tabs to 4,59,564 students and 59,176 teachers in government schools and government-aided schools by this month, that is, September. But due to supply issues, seems like the date of delivery has been pushed to December.
These 5,18,740 tabs, which will come with BYJU'S pre-loaded content for students of Class VIII, will cost the government Rs 664 crore, informed sources in the Department of Education, as stated in a report by PTI.
The AP Technology Services finalised the deal with a private supplier for the Samsung T220 Lite Tablet PC, with the delivery schedule supposed to start this month.
The plan of the department was to distribute the tabs in 15 districts over north coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema by September 30. By the second phase, the remaining 11 districts in coastal Andhra were supposed to be covered in the second phase by October 31.
But Botsa Satyanarayana, the Education Minister of Andhra Pradesh, informed the Legislative Council on September 16 that the distribution will be done by November 14, that is, Children's Day.
"But we may not meet even that timeline now because of the paucity of the gadgets. Eventually, it may happen only in December," a senior official of the Education Department said.
Sources informed that there was also a few technical glitches that needed to be resolved.
Initially, the tabs were supposed to be only for Class VIII students, but the State Cabinet gave the green signal for it to be distributed among teachers too.
Sources in the Education Department said the government entered into an agreement with the vendor on September 5 under which each Tab with a 64 GB memory card will be supplied at Rs 12,843, as against the market price of Rs 16,446.
Originally, the state government promised to distribute laptop computers to students from Classes IX to XII (Intermediate) in lieu of the Rs 13,000 per annum Amma Vodi dole.
The plan was aborted after the suppliers quoted a base price of Rs 24,000 for each laptop.
The government then came up with the tabs idea, to be distributed to Class VIII students every year from now on, which they will have to carry to Classes IX and X.
