The Ministry of Education aims to increase 4G mobile access to about 2,000 schools in rural and remote areas at the latest by early next year.

Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said that currently 62 percent of the 10,176 primary and secondary schools in the country, especially in the urban and suburban areas were using the technology.

However, he said most schools in rural and remote areas were still using the system with very low-speed access and improvements were needed to reduce the digital gap between students in urban and rural areas.

"The vendor and the Educational Technology Division are currently in the stage of mapping to identify schools that can potentially be upgraded to using 4G technology."

He said this at a press conference after officiating at the 2016 National Smart Schools Award ceremony here, Wednesday. -- BERNAMA