Former Class 12 students flay revised GO on free laptops

The move was aimed at facilitating students of the present batch to attend various competitive exams like NEET, JEE and CLAT and at optimising learning outcomes in the context of the revised text-books which contain QR code links to audio-visual content, question banks and high-tech labs.”

The government through its original GO (GO (Ms) No 9, special programme implementation department, dated July 14, 2018 decided to procure a total of 15,53,359 laptops for higher secondary and polytechnic students of 2017-18 and 2018-19.

However, this GO was modified and a priority in distribution of laptops was given through a subsequent GO (GO (Ms) No 3 special programmes implementation department, dated 14/6/2019), which is said to be the reason for agitations cropping up in various places in Vellore and Tiruvannamalai districts by students of previous year. Under the priority basis, students of 2019-20 batch would be given top priority, followed by class 11 students of the same year. After these two, class 12 students of 2018-19 and 2017-18 were listed. Left over laptops if any, would be distributed to 40,000 odd polytechnic students, the GO said.

School Education officials were also ordered to immediately inform the government if there was a need for laptops over and above the 15.53 lakh proposed earlier.

However, students who spoke to this reporter at Vellore and Ambur complained, “we have no clue as to when the laptops will be distributed to us.”

Education officials in Vellore claimed, “the agitations by former students in various places are politically motivated as we have informed all schools that they will get their laptops within three months at the most.” “Even if students have completed higher secondary school, the respective schools and the district education department have a list of students who will be given laptops,” said Vellore CEO S Mars.