A top-tier high school in Nanjing is considering equipping its seniors with iPads, the first in China to do so, chinanews.com reported on Monday.

Starting in September, Jinling High School will provide the popular Apple tablets to seniors involved in a project of cooperation between the school and the University of California at Los Angeles in the US.

Under the project, those students will take Advancement Placement classes and parts of UCLA’s classes in addition to their own academic studies. If the pilot project goes well, the school will extend the iPad plan to all grades.

At least for now, they are optimistic about its effectiveness.

"Students won’t need to depend on expensive foreign textbooks they used to buy at a fairly high price if they have iPads," said Zang Yanzhang, the project director. "And they will receive updates on the contents of their textbooks and have access to academic resources in other fields."

He also thinks the tablets will help the students get involved in classes more, and improve their English skills.

"By adopting certain educational software on iPads, the teacher will be able to follow all the students’ academic performance, which will help the teacher adjust his teaching techniques at proper times," he said.

"Using iPads will also help their English skills and better prepare them for the Scholastic Assessment Test."

The flip side of the popularization of iPads among students falls in mainly two aspects: parents worry that their children could be distracted by games on iPads, and it may affect their eyesight.

Zang says those concerns are unnecessary.

"Technically we can control what the students can download on iPads. Entertainment items like games, and QQ (a popular instant messenger) will be banned."

Gao Yanqing, an eye specialist, says that shortsightedness is mainly caused by intense close visual work. If the students are not addicted to iPads they will no have problem with their eyes.

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads in China last year.