Hi-Tech Park to gift some 5,000 tablets for education purposes, population census in Belarus
01/12/2018
According to BelTA the Hi-Tech Park will allocate about 5,000 tablet computers to the Belarusian Education Ministry.
The tablets will initially be used to carry out a population census in 2019, BelTA learned from Chairwoman of the National Statistics Committee of Belarus Inna Medvedeva on 30 November. According to the source, ample funds were put aside for financing the population census as the state budget for 2019 was put together because the precise size of sponsor aid was unknown at the time. However, sponsor aid turned out to be massive. According to preliminary estimates, the funding the population census will need can be reduced by two thirds. “It is likely we will not have to purchase anything next year. The Hi-Tech Park will help out the Belarusian Education Ministry by allocating some 5,000 tablets for education purposes. The tablets will be used to carry out the population census initially and for education later on,” said Inna Medvedeva. The sponsors also include Belarusian Potash Company (the tablets will be used in healthcare institutions after the population census), the tractor manufacturer MTZ, and organizations run by the National Statistics Committee. There are plans to use roughly 12,800 tablet computers (including reserves). Specialists believe that the hardware will allow reducing the time required to poll one respondent from 15 minutes to 5 minutes. “As far as international technical aid is concerned, a document involving the World Bank is nearly ready. We expect the matter to be settled within days. We are talking about $1.9 million,” said Inna Medvedeva. “The money will be used to buy Internet data services, buy the tablets we lack, and sum up the results.” The National Statistics Committee has also contacted the UNFPA with a request to contribute to the population poll in Belarus. A sum of $800,000 was mentioned. The money will be donated by Russia. “According to our embassy in the Russian Federation, the matter will be looked into in January 2019,” said Inna Medvedeva. Benefits of the sponsor aid are already obvious. The sponsor aid has saved Br5.6 million in reserved funds of the state budget.
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