Kochi, Sep 18 : In a major step towards strengthening education in the island territory, the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), the technology arm of Kerala's Department of General Education, has distributed robotics kits to schools across the nine islands of Lakshadweep.

The initiative aims to enhance robotics learning and provide hands-on experience for Class 10 students following the Kerala curriculum.

These kits will help students learn science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) in a fun and practical way.

A total of 100 robotics kits have been supplied, with one kit allocated for every three students to enable practical and interactive learning.

Alongside the distribution, KITE has launched a five-day training programme for high school ICT teachers and District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) faculty from Lakshadweep.

The sessions commenced on Thursday at KITE's Regional Resource Centre here. Kerala's Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty inaugurated the programme online and reaffirmed the government's commitment to bridging educational gaps in the islands.

'The Kerala government is committed to providing all necessary resources, including the latest technology, to ensure the students of Lakshadweep receive the best possible education,' he said.

KITE CEO K. Anvar Sadath formally handed over the robotics kits to school representatives.

The kits are designed to support the new 'World of Robots' chapter in the Class 10 ICT textbook, allowing students to explore concepts such as circuit building, sensors, actuators, and programming to control devices.

The initiative follows KITE's recent AI training programme for postgraduate teachers in Lakshadweep.

Sadath also announced that the next phase will focus on training primary and upper primary teachers. Within Kerala, KITE has already distributed 29,000 robotics kits, with arrangements in place for schools requiring additional kits to purchase them directly.

From this year, robotics has become a subject in the ICT curriculum for more than four lakh Class 10 students in Kerala.

The new kits are powered by an ESP32 Devkit v1 microcontroller.

/IANS