Smart TVs for schools: Ed. Ministry embarks on new multi-million rupee programme
View(s):The Education Ministry is venturing on a multi-million rupee programme to provide smart TVs to national and provincial schools to carry out their educational activities, and follow the previous classes missed due to the COVID situation, a senior education official said.
Education Reforms, Open Universities and Distance Learning Promotion Additional Secretary Neil Gunadasa told the Education Times that Rs. 495 million will be spent on the project to provide over 7,000 television sets to these schools.
In addition to providing TVs for schools, the project would be useful to carry out educational activities for students who had been deprived of online educational activities, Mr. Gunadasa said.
Under the project, recorded programmes of classes which the students had missed due to schools being closed, would be saved on DVDs or pen drives. These would be sent to the schools for the students to watch.
Internet facilities would also be provided to the respective schools, after discussions with the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, (TRC) Sri Lanka Telecom and private service providers. The expenditure on the project includes training and minor infrastructure facilities.
“We have sent teams to all provinces to check on the installations of the facilities. In some places, even though school principals claim they have the required facilities, after checking we find that the facilities are inadequate,” Mr. Gunadasa said.
He said the project was to begin next month, and right after they receive the TVs they would make use of it for the benefit of the students. Under the programme, if around 100 students could make use of a TV at the same time, one set would be provided. However if around 200 students could make use of it at once, two sets would be provided.