In a significant move to bolster digital education, the Delhi government has announced that it will provide free i7 laptops to 1,200 meritorious Class 10 students from government schools and establish Information and Communication Technology (ICT) labs in 175 schools, Education Minister Ashish Sood announced on Tuesday. These measures were approved at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta.
The initiatives fall under the Mukhya Mantri Digital Education Scheme, which aims to strengthen digital infrastructure and promote equitable access to educational resources. According to Minister Sood, this effort aligns with the objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP) and will help academically bright students meet the growing digital demands of higher education and competitive exams.
The scheme will incur an estimated expenditure of Rs 8 crore, covering the cost of high-end laptops with Intel i7 processors, which will be distributed to students who scored commendable marks in the Class 10 board examinations.
In addition to the laptop distribution, the Cabinet also approved the setting up of ICT labs in 175 Delhi government schools. Each lab, compliant with CBSE guidelines, will be equipped with 40 computers and modern digital learning infrastructure.
Sood criticized the previous AAP government’s claims of an “education revolution”, pointing out that none of the 1,074 government schools in Delhi had functional computer labs. He further alleged that during AAP’s tenure, while computer labs were set up in 907 schools under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) between 2015 and 2019 with central government funds, these labs were never made functional.
To improve the current situation, the Delhi government has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a private organization under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative to establish 100 ICT labs in government schools.
In another development, the education minister announced that orientation programmes will be conducted in all Sarvodaya Vidyalayas across the city on Wednesday. These sessions will cater to students of nursery to Class 1 and their parents, to help them familiarize themselves with the school environment and curriculum.
These announcements mark a major step in Delhi’s renewed focus on digital empowerment and infrastructure improvement in education, aiming to bridge the digital divide and create a future-ready learning environment for students across the capital.
