MINISTER of Science, Technology, Energy, and Mining Phillip Paulwell says that 18,000 of the targeted 25,000 tablet computers will be delivered to students before the end of the Christmas school term on December 18.

The remaining 7,000 devices will be distributed during the early weeks of the Easter term in 2015.

He was speaking at a distribution exercise at the Cambridge High School in St James last Wednesday, where 1,588 students were presented with tablets under the Government’s $1.4 billion Tablets in Schools pilot project.

This brings the number of students to receive devices to date, to about 17,000, with another 1,000 students to receive computers next week.

Minister Paulwell said that Cambridge High, which is the 28th school to benefit, represents the largest distribution point so far among the 38 schools earmarked under the project.

The technology minister told the students and their parents that the computers being distributed are state-of-the-art and equal to those being used by students in more technologically advanced countries.