LONDON - In a bid to save State money, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has stretched a new plan to replace textbooks with Internet lessons.

The actor-turned-politician is facing a budget shortfall of 24.3 billion dollars, and has said that a shift to online study would also keep pupils more up to date.

The ‘Terminator’ star believes that online activities like Facebook, Twitter and downloading to portable devices demonstrate that young people are ready to learn from the internet.

“A world of up-to-date information fits easily into their pockets and onto their computer screens,” the Telegraph quoted him as having written in the San Jose Mercury News.

He added: “So why are California’s public school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks? California is home to software giants, bioscience research pioneers and first-class university systems known around the world, but our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg’s printing press.”

Last year California spent 350 million dollars on textbooks, which made Schwarzenegger to sign an executive order to scrap funding on contracts from March.

August onwards, high school maths and science students will be offered educational materials online and the opportunity to use digital readers, which can hold the equivalent of 160 books. (ANI)