UAE’s TRA to offer free mobile data to help students with no home internet

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in the UAE announced that it has coordinated with service providers in the country to grant free internet data via mobile phones to families which have no home internet services, official news agency WAM reported.

This move will facilitate access to distance learning programmes initiated as a result of nation-wide closure of educational institutions in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UAE’s two telecom operators, Etisalat and du, will provide a package of data needed to access the distance learning feature free of charge.

TRA expressed its gratitude to service providers for this initiative.

To combat the fallout of the Covid-19 virus, the UAE announced that all educational institutions across the country would be shut down for a period of four weeks, starting March 8.

Read: Schools, colleges in the UAE to close for four weeks from March 8

During the vacation, a distance learning initiative and sterilisation of educational facilities was announced.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus infection, that reportedly broke out in a live food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the virus has infected over 195,000 people, claiming more than 7,000 lives globally.