Education minister: About 13,000 laptops, tablets given to students
A total of 12,887 laptops and tablets have been delivered to 95 schools while another 40,290 will be channelled to students latest on June 12, said Education Minister Mohd Radzi Md Jidin.
He said this when asked about the status of 150,000 laptops and tablets promised by the government for underprivileged students in Budget 2021 in a press conference in Putrajaya today.
"The balance of 96,823 devices are expected to be delivered latest in September.
"As we had stated, the devices will be delivered as soon as possible. We had to adopt a slightly different approach due to challenging circumstances, such as supply issue, but we finally managed to start distributing the devices," he said.
However, what was announced today meant more delays in the delivery of the devices. It was reported on April 25 that at least 50,000 digital learning devices will be given to the students by the end of May instead of June 12 as announced by Radzi.
When tabling Budget 2021 in November last year, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz said the GLCs and GLICs would contribute RM150 million into the Cerdik fund to provide 150,000 laptops to students in 500 schools in a pilot project overseen by Yayasan Hasanah.
The distribution of free laptops was part of the Cerdik scheme, a corporate social responsibility initiative by 13 GLCs and GLICs under the Finance Ministry.
In January, Zafrul said that the 150,000 laptops would be distributed in early February. On Feb 8, he said in a statement that the laptops would actually be loaned out, with students needing to eventually return the devices.
A survey by the Education Ministry in March revealed that 36.9 percent of up to 900,000 students affected by school closures due to the Covid-19 outbreak have no access to an electronic device for e-learning purposes.
