Every Thai Student Should Have A Tablet PC By May: Woravat

[Firelily]

I would suggest they wake up and start with hooking up every village school to the electric grid, get them fans. Then books, shoes and uniforms for all the poor kids. Then maybe upgrade the latrines. Set up libraries, buy sports equipment, art supplies. Paint the walls, repair leaking roofs. Make sure no teachers get shot and killed on the job.

I know, I know.... politicians always know better.

[Mitker]

Good to see this govt goes back to real priorities.

Free PC Tablets are exactly what this country is in need of.

[KKK]

The One Tablet PC Per Child policy was one of the many campaign promises made by the ruling Pheu Thai Party.

And probably like most of the other campaign promises this one will turn out to also be a LIE.....

[KKK]

I would suggest they wake up and start with hooking up every village school to the electric grid, get them fans. Then books, shoes and uniforms for all the poor kids. Then maybe upgrade the latrines. Set up libraries, buy sports equipment, art supplies. Paint the walls, repair leaking roofs. Make sure no teachers get shot and killed on the job.

I know, I know.... politicians always know better.

The kids don't NEED uniforms...let them wear their usual clothes....as for the rest ,YES I agree, but more importantly get some decent teachers instead of the lazy (state school) w**k**s that the kids presently have to put up with. Whatever the state of the classroom, the latrines, the library etc none of it can make up for shitty teachers who actually know less than most of the kids they're (trying to) teach.

[billd766]

The Minister has asked for 1.6 billion baht to buy 470,000 tablets which comes to 3,404 baht per tablet presumably including software.

From that price comes the legal profits to the supplier, the software company, and the transportation costs. Either there will not be any fat left to eat or the tablets will be worthless.

[wxyz]

I would suggest they wake up and start with hooking up every village school to the electric grid, get them fans. Then books, shoes and uniforms for all the poor kids. Then maybe upgrade the latrines. Set up libraries, buy sports equipment, art supplies. Paint the walls, repair leaking roofs. Make sure no teachers get shot and killed on the job.

I know, I know.... politicians always know better.

"Make sure no teachers get shot and killed on the job "

wow, and farangs want these jobs because?

[Buchholz]

The government's One Tablet PC per Child policy will be fully implemented by May, Education Minister Woravat Auapinyakul pledged yesterday.

"We will try to give tablet PCs to all students in primary and secondary school," he said, adding that vocational students would also get the tablets.

*Note: Education Minister Woravat Auapinyakul is no longer the Education Minister. He was one of the Cabinet Ministers that was dropped from his position last week.

For now, his Pheu Thai Party is no longer making promises to provide tablet PC's to all students in primary, secondary, and vocational schools by May.*

Tablet project under pressure

Education Ministry has only 4 months to buy 470,000 computers to be given to Prathom-1 students in phase one of the policy

More than 400,000 tablets are to be delivered to Prathom 1 (Grade 1) students on May 23 in the first phase of the government's One Tablet PC per Child policy, a top official at the Education Ministry told The Nation recently.

"We need to deliver tens of thousands of tablets to Prathom 1 students in May, which is the month that the first semester of the 2012 academic starts. Prime Minister Yingluck [shinawatra] has already announced in Parliament that the first phase would start with Prathom-1 students at pilot schools and the tablets would be given to them at that time," Sasithara Pichaichannarong, permanent secretary of the ministry said. She gave an exclusive interview to the Nation Group of publications during her visit to their offices on Friday.

Sasithara added that the government would expand the distribution to older students in its long-term plan.

"To be able to hand out up to 470,000 tablets on time, for which we have only about four months left, the Education Ministry will conclude next week how to purchase such a huge number of tablets," she said.

The ministry is in the process of considering the buying process amid time constraints. It is looking at two options - holding an auction in which private companies manufacturing tablets can compete, and discussing with China if Thailand can buy the tablets from China under a government-to-government contract.

"The PM is worried that the government will not be able to distribute the huge number of tablets on time. So, she has told the Foreign Ministry to discuss the issue with China."

"India is the other interesting partner with whom we could have an agreement for purchase of the tablets," Sasithara added.

Meanwhile, many tablet companies in Thailand have approached the ministry to present their products, she said.

Late last year, 17 companies met Woravat Auapinyakul, then Education Minister, to present their products and discuss the pricing. Lenovo (Thailand), the China-based computer maker, donated 600 tablets for free preliminary testing and for research on the impact of allowing the use of tablets on students at five selected big schools in different regions of the country.

About 62 per cent of the total 850,000 Prathom-1 students will be given the tablets, requiring a budget allocation of Bt1.6 billion. Each tablet will cost about Bt3,400 (Bt3,100 for hardware and Bt300 for software installation), with a capacity of 16GB. Teachers will keep the tablets at schools and allow them for use only in the class.

Schools without electricity or adequate facilities to support tablet use in classrooms (e.g., electrical outlets and televisions), or whose teachers are unable to make use of such technological tools, will not be eligible to receive the tablets.

More than 2,000 schools do not have electricity.

Asked about worries in some quarters about whether economically priced tablets would have specifications good enough for use by the students, she replied: "Since the targeted students are only six years old, they do not need high-spec computers. Using just simple programs and applications and having fun during academic learning from the tablets are enough for them. They don't need ones with quick response and fast downloads from the Internet. Please do not compare your needs with those of children."

The permanent secretary said the content of five subjects - maths, science, Thai, English and social studies - would be installed in each tablet. She told the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) to provide its e-content and interactive learning objects. It had to choose suitable ones from a total of more than 800 items.

"Due to time and budget constraints, we are unable to hire private companies with interactive teaching software to deal with the content," said Sasithara.

During preparation of the content, Obec made a presentation of its interactive teaching software to Woravat. The e-content of some of the five subjects, using cartoon animations to describe the content, and learning games were shown to him late last year.

Providing training to teachers to enable effective use of tablets in the class will be the next challenging task for the ministry before it undertakes distribution of the tablets.

-- The Nation 2012-01-23

Edited January 22, 2012 by Buchholz

[Buchholz]

The government's One Tablet PC per Child policy will be fully implemented by May, Education Minister Woravat Auapinyakul pledged yesterday.

"We will try to give tablet PCs to all students in primary and secondary school," he said, adding that vocational students would also get the tablets.

*Note: Education Minister Woravat Auapinyakul is no longer the Education Minister. He was one of the Cabinet Ministers that was dropped from his position last week.

For now, his Pheu Thai Party is no longer making promises to provide tablet PC's to all students in primary, secondary, and vocational schools by May.*

Tablet project under pressure

More than 2,000 schools do not have electricity.

In the rush to jump into the early 21st Century with billions of baht for Chinese plastic, perhaps the Education Ministry might first wish to consider jumping into the early 20th Century to get power to schools.

.

[Galong]

Better teachers and respectable pay for those teachers is, of course, the way forward for Thailand. This scheme is simply a waste of money and anyone with an inkling of common sense or knowledge of how things work here knows it.

[Ricardo]

One wonders whether any of the 600 tablets donated "late last year" have yet been distributed to the "five selected big schools in different regions of the country" , and how the trials have gone ? Surely they need to be completed, before a final choice can be made, and how to compare the alternatives from manufacturers who didn't donate tablets ?

The purchase-contract for the tablets, and the selection of suitable software to run on them, appears to not yet have been completed. It's getting rather late-in-the-day, and now the minister has been changed, which is hardly likely to speed things up ?

Expect some further slippage in delivering the election-promise.

[sirchai]

I would take a bet that the tablets received by the students are not the same as those in the picture at the top.

Total waste of money that could be much better spent in other ways.

It's certainly not going to be the 18,900 baht tablet that Yingluck so proudly displayed to parents on the campaign trail before the election.

Not unless they plan to spend 200 Billion Baht plus plus

Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of toppled former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra and the prime ministerial candidate for the country's biggest opposition Puea Thai party, holds up a Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet computer as she speaks to supporters in Bangkok June 18, 2011.

Miss Yingluck will be responsible for the charging of the batteries for all the tablet Pcs. She'll also go from school to school to explain what she doesn't know about computers.

[sirchai]

Nonsense.

Edited January 23, 2012 by sirchai

[sirchai]

This is dumb, i used to teach prathom 1 students ICT and all they want to do is play games, most of them can't even read properly. Now I see facebook updates from ex students saying "i am studying xxx subject, borrring", that is how students will use their tablets. I now work with Japanese students and they insist on students learning to read and write the old fashioned way before they use technology, and this works. I can think of many better ways of spending cash to improve education such as paying teachers better and giving them better teaching materials. The tablet thing is a stupid intitiative and will be laughed at in years to come.

I now work with Japanese students and they insist on students learning to read and write the old fashioned way before they use technology, and this works

I'd think all kids on this planet have to learn how to read and write first, before using electronic medias. It's just a weird idea coming from weird people who're doing weird things.

[Buchholz]

One wonders whether any of the 600 tablets donated "late last year" have yet been distributed to the "five selected big schools in different regions of the country" , and how the trials have gone ? Surely they need to be completed, before a final choice can be made, and how to compare the alternatives from manufacturers who didn't donate tablets ?

The purchase-contract for the tablets, and the selection of suitable software to run on them, appears to not yet have been completed. It's getting rather late-in-the-day, and now the minister has been changed, which is hardly likely to speed things up ?

Expect some further slippage in delivering the election-promise.

The 600 tablets were distributed earlier this month.... to, shall we say, less than enthusiastic fanfare.

In yesterday's announcement that they were issuing 600 tablets to a few selected schools, it was very revealing in a poll of the parents and teachers attached to those schools that 94.1% disagreed with providing tablets to the 1st graders.

Now, they're going out and getting nearly a half a million computers.... for other 1st graders.

oh, and they got 4 months to do it.

To fully keep their election promise would entail around an additional Eleven Million computers.

.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Buchholz

[Buchholz]

I'm wondering how many of the 470,000 tablet computers will going to the 2,000 schools that don't have electricity.

.

[tlansford]

Do you have to put your child's name on a register to receive one?

The childres have to register their natural fathers name.... Oops... that just halved the quota...!

reaching new lows

[tlansford]

One would hope, rather than place an order with an overseas manufacturer, that the government has thought this through and uses the opportunity to set up a domestic supply operation providing local jobs. An order of this magnitude must surely be enough to tempt a manufacturer to set up in Thailand especially since there is already a large electronics manufacturing industry here.

It will be interesting to see where they actually come from and if the opportunity is grasped to benefit the whole country or if the contract goes to some faceless factory in China with dubious ownership???

in the short term that is not possible but your thoughts are good - the gov't will have leverage on suppliers.

[Bagwan]

After reading all the crap that Government Ministers churn out on a daily bais I have found that I, myself, need to be issued with a tablet. Mogadon.

[Buchholz]

One would hope, rather than place an order with an overseas manufacturer, that the government has thought this through and uses the opportunity to set up a domestic supply operation providing local jobs. An order of this magnitude must surely be enough to tempt a manufacturer to set up in Thailand especially since there is already a large electronics manufacturing industry here.

It will be interesting to see where they actually come from and if the opportunity is grasped to benefit the whole country or if the contract goes to some faceless factory in China with dubious ownership???

There was talk earlier of having vocational education students solder them together with bits and pieces of hardware at their colleges.

Not sure if they can handle the order for half a million of them in a few months, though.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Buchholz