THE fusty aroma of old textbooks may take you back to your school years, but children starting school after 2015 in South Korea are more likely to recall the smell of an overheating tablet computer.

That’s because the education ministry intends to transform schools into paperless digital operations by then, according to Korean news site The Chosun Ilbo.

Under its Smart Education programme, announced on 1 July, the ministry is to spend 2.2 trillion Won ($2 billion) digitising all elementary and secondary school textbooks currently in use so they can be read on a variety of devices, including computers, interactive whiteboards, iPad-like tablets and smartphones. Classes will also be video-streamed online so children who can’t come in due to poor health or weather don’t miss out.

Children with disabilities may also benefit: e-books could be controlled by eye-tracking or gesture recognition, for example.