Slovakia launches website with e-books

LONDON, UK: In a first of its kind anywhere in the world, the European nation of Slovakia has launched a new website to provide the public with digitised school textbooks free of cost.

The education ministry on Thursday launched the eaktovka.sk. website, where people could access a total of 26 digitised textbooks and compulsory-reading books as well as download 65 audio-recordings.

The word "aktovka" means "schoolbag" in Slovak, reported Xinhua.

Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca said: "We hope that pupils will be able to study even in places where they don't bring their textbooks, such as during the holidays at their grandma's, but also that teachers will have an easier time putting together various textbooks or their sections on, for example, physics or chemistry."

Jurzyca said around 92 per cent of households with school-going children who own personal computers and 70 per cent of those which have access to the internet would visit the website.

Slovakia, also known as the Slovak Republic, has a population of around 5.4 million. It was part of Czechoslovakia till 1993, when the country was bifurcated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.