Pupils now in their second year at primary school will be the first to benefit from the free tablet programme that the government plans to roll out to all Year 4 students from September 2015.
Education Minister Evarist Bartolo yesterday announced a call for interest from suppliers of tablets and software for a one-year pilot programme starting in March.
Teachers may apply to take part in the project on a voluntary basis.
Dr Bartolo laid emphasis on getting teachers on board, adding that the government was working in collaboration with the Malta Union of Teachers.
He said teachers would be the ones trying out the device during the pilot project, to be able to draw on their experience prior to launching the programme on a nationwide basis from the scholastic year 2015-16. Students will keep their tablets for use the following year. The introduction of tablets in secondary schools will be dealt with later, the minister said.
However the MUT later issued a statement disagreeing with the government’s decision to embark on the pilot project in the middle of the school year.
Saying it had no objections to the use of tablets in schools, the teachers’ unions said no agreement had so far been reached with the government but it was looking forward to meeting ministry officials about the implementation.
The Education Minister warned the introduction of tablets was not an end in itself but rather a means to facilitate learning.
“Thinking that the introduction of tablets will do miracles would be an illusion,” said Dr Bartolo.
He said the issue had to be tackled within the wider context of the educational system, which was lagging behind when it came to literacy skills among school leavers.
Dr Bartolo said one of the greatest challenges was how to support children living in families that were at risk of poverty, which he said was around a fifth of the student population.
“Giving tablets to children who cannot afford an internet subscription at home would be pointless” he said.
Thinking that the introduction of tablets will do miracles would be an illusion
This theme was one of the major electoral battlegrounds this time last year when the two parties locked horns in what was dubbed “the battle of the tablets”.
In its manifesto Labour pledged to give a free tablet to all Year 4 primary school children including those in Church and independent schools, as part of its “one tablet per child” programme.
The PN had then come out with its own proposal to give a tablet to every single schoolchild.
At the time the PL’s conservative estimate for the cost of the project was of €1.5 million per year.
The call launched yesterday will remain open for four weeks, with the education minister saying he expected a good response from suppliers of tablets and soft-ware companies.
Great care was taken not to favour any particular brand, he said, describing the call as “technologically neutral”.
In this year’s Budget the government voted €80,000 for the pilot.
The minister said that the government would be looking for software applications both in Maltese and in English, as well as others focusing on numerical skills and mathematics.