Minister of Education Tarek Shawky talking at the parliament – Hazem Abdel SamadIn an attempt to develop education in Egypt, the state is introducing technology into public schools. He added that the tablets would be given for free and would not need to be returned.A similar plan was implemented before, in 2013, as 250,000 tablets were given to students at public high schools in six governorates at a cost of LE 400 million ($22.5 million). The idea of introducing tablets stemmed from the fact that printing school books costs the state LE 1.2 billion per year.The experiment failed miserably, as students used the tablets to play video games and watch movies during classes. Moreover, a large number of the tablets were either damaged or sold by students. The huge amounts of funds that go into purchasing tablets can be redirected to developing and constructing laboratories in public schools as well as renovating and introducing new educational materials.As the curricula would be available online, teachers can display them in classrooms with projectors, which are available in many schools already and can be set up for others.

Source: Egypt Today January 22, 2018 17:26 UTC