Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy will start the distribution of electronic tablets to over 5 lakh students during a programme at Yadlapalli in Bapatla district on Wednesday.
This is part of his efforts to turn education from conventional mode to modern ways through the e-learning system. He would also address a public meeting.
The CM would leave Tadepalli at 10am and reach the Yadlapalli Zilla Parishad High School at 11am. The tabs would be distributed from 11am to 1pm for Class VIII students and address the public meeting.
Free tabs are provided not only for Class VIII students but also to teachers. As many as 4,59,564 students and 59,176 teachers of the 8th standard in government and aided schools across the state would get private online education player Byjus’ preloaded content for a government payment of Rs 686 crore. A total of 5,18,740 Samsung Tabs will be distributed free of charge, officials said.
Jagan would formally inaugurate the tabs distribution in Yadlapalli, Chundur mandal, of Bapatla district. The state-wide distribution will run for a week across the state.
YS Jagan, in his assumed role as a “good uncle” brought English medium as also the subject teacher concept in classrooms to the benefit of the students. Now, he’s enabling students to learn the subject 24/7 even outside the classrooms. The tabs would enable the poor children as the CM is laying out a golden path for their future, government sources explained.
This e-tab learning system would help make poor students global citizens and make their curriculum easier to understand. The government is taking steps to ensure that every student who has entered the 8th class in government and aided schools get the free tabs with the changed content every year, and these would also work offline.
The officials said that for 32 lakh students of Class IV to X, Rs 15,500 worth content, at a total cost of Rs 4,960 crore is provided free. The YSRC government is preparing the students in the 8th class to take the 10th class exam in English medium under the CBSE system for the 2025 academic year. The handy learning through tabs would help these students.
The Class 8 and 9 contents are preloaded in tabs through a memory card to make the curriculum accessible day and night, anywhere, anytime, even offline for students without internet access.
Officials said the free e-content in English and Telugu languages make learning easy for students in Maths, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, History, Geology and Civics subjects through the Premium App (Byjus). The 67 chapters, each divided into concepts, 300 videos on 472 concepts and 168 solved question banks are available in the tablet.
The content is created not only in the form of texts but also as g images, video, audio and animations in three-dimensional (3D) formula so that children can understand the curriculum easily.
The system enables children to self-assess their level under which there are 40–50 questions after each chapter and mock tests in different grades.
Further, there is special software to block unwanted sites and apps in tabs, apart from a 3-year- warranty. If any problem occurs, students need to give the tab to the nearest secretariat, and it would arrange repair or replacement. This responsibility lies with the local secretariat.
The government is taking steps for installation of interactive flat panels (reading through digital display boards), smart TVs in foundation, foundation plus schools in 30,032 classrooms above Class 6 in 15,634 schools by this June. This would switch education to totally electronic mode in government schools.
