School children to get free pads and laptops

Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Education and Science will give free pads and laptops to pupils as part of an e-learning pilot project in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports. The pilot project will cover 44 schools. The Ministry and KazakhTelecom national communication company worked out a joint plan to help schools start using e-learning in their curriculums. 22 schools will receive touch pads and the other 22 will be supplied with laptops, Education Minister Bakytzhan Zhumagulov said. “We need to see the kids’ academic progress and their attitude to the system. We will make further step only after we study the results of this experiment,” the minister said. According to the minister, e-learning will give kids and their parents full access to all the educational tools. The experiment is expected to cover students of 5th to 10th grades (between 11 and 16 y.o.) who study in Astana, Karaganda and Almaty. Minister Zhumagulov believes that these cities are more advanced and have no problems with broadband Internet access. Minister said that all computers will be paid for from the state budget.