AN educational technology provider in Blackburn has won a huge contract to revolutionise classrooms across Egypt.

Bosses at Promethean, based in Lower Phillips Road, showcased their Intelligent Classroom modular learning system to the country's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi last month.

And now it has been announced that their ActivPanel interactive displays are set to be installed in 26,000 classrooms across the African country, in a deal worth an estimated £70million or more.

Plans are in place to begin the rollout of the technology, which is designed to be compatible with the latest Android operating systems, from the beginning of 2020.

The announcement rounds off a stellar 12 months for Promethean, which started off 2019 by being named 'company of the year' in the industry-wide Betts awards.

This contract also follows an upsurge in their trading fortunes in recent times.

Back in 2013 the group was posting losses of £165million but their latest financial results showed a £12.3million profit.

Vin Riera, the Whitebirk Industrial Estate firm's chief executive, said: "It is a privilege and honour to support the Ministry of Education, Egypt, in delivering practical and innovative solutions that will ultimately contribute to the improvement of education throughout the country.

"As a company specialising exclusively in education technology, we work closely with governments around the world to implement strategies that raise educational standards through the effective implementation of our ActivPanel and very much look forward to continuing our longstanding and positive relationship."

The Blackburn company's capabilities were demonstrated to the president and Egyptian education ministry at the Africa 2019, which took place in Cairo.

Their decision to invest with Promethean follows a 2015 national education review supported by UNESCO, which recommended overhauling classroom technology.

Dr Tarek Shawki, Egypt's education minister, added: "Our objective is to rapidly and significantly improve the quality of education provision, which in the modern world demands a highly digital approach.

"The challenge we faced was two-fold. Improving our current classrooms while expanding our education estate - with consistency of technology across the two being paramount.

"Promethean has proven to be a trusted partner, not only in delivering a solution that can upgrade our existing classrooms, but also innovating with NetDragon to develop the Intelligent Classroom.

"We are now in a very strong position to achieve our objectives and deliver world-class education."

Promethean will be working with a local distributor, Innovera, to begin the installation process in January, with the process set to be completed by the summer.