The Maldivian Ministry of Education has on Monday begun distributing tablet computers to public schools in the capital, as part of the government’s highly publicized efforts to further digitize teaching.

An event to initiate said distribution process was held at the state-run primary education Iskandhar School in capital city Malé on Monday night.

Education Minister Aishath Shiham was the chief guest at the event and had personally distributed tablet computers to every one of the school’s teachers.

Minister Shiham said, at Monday night’s event, that all teachers in capital city Malé will have tablets distributed to them by the week’s end and that all students will have one for themselves as well by the time the second semester sessions begin.

Such tablet computers are to be distributed to schools in the outlying atolls as well and though the ministry said this will be done ‘soon’, a period by when ‘digitization’ will reach academic facilities in less developed regions has yet to be publicly revealed or even mentioned.

Shiham said that the government’s efforts to digitize teaching at schools will not only develop public school education in the country but help ‘revolutionize’ it.

The ministry has contracted local company Maxcom Technologies Pvt Ltd to purchase a total of 70,000 tablet computers. This project is reportedly worth over MVR 200 million.