Tablet Computer Distribution Kicks Off In Thailand

[Skywalker69]

Anybody know how many tablets has been delivered so far?

[TheKrayTriplet]

I have kids in public school:smalish NkhonNowhere town,3000 pupils,among Thai staff - half a dozen of foreign teachers,

comp.lab,school wi-fi network,town has fm station,asphalt streets,running water everywhere.I have been in plenty of places in Thailand and I have to admit with shame - I have not seen any place without electricity.

a couple of examples:

Thai school with no electricity in Sangkhlaburi

http://abroadwithrob...angklaburi.html

Thai school with no electricity in Mae Sariang

http://www.bangkokst...on_Project.html

But upon further reading, the whole aspect is apparently moot.

The students in those schools that don't have the infrastructure already in place, eg. electricity, won't be receiving their tablet computer in the first place.

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

http://www.nationmul...e-30174293.html

The education of those students will just have to wait.

.

Just thought I'd have a glance at the example of a school

without electricity

link you provided bucholz.

Interesting place, it's called colloquially, "the bamboo school", for fairly obvious reasons. Seems to be run by a Christian group now but it was started by a local thai lady. Here's another picture

Wait a minute, what are those long white tube things on the roof, surely they can't be......... Anyway the school is quite resourceful for a school without electricity as they have a night school as well that teaches myanmar children who work during the day. Here's a pic.

Oh, well, anyway......

All pictures of the Bamboo School courtesy of the link bucholz provided -

http://abroadwithrob...chool-near.html

Oh and the second link to a school without electricity, The Ban Huay School has this to say in the link provided

The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community.

http://www.bangkokstgeorgesoc.org/The_Thailand_Hill_Tribes_Education_Project.html

Can't be right all the time I suppose.

Edited October 6, 2012 by TheKrayTriplet

[rubl]

It's good to see that the St. George's Society helps where seemingly the government is unable.

Anyway it's a bit quiet on the 'tabletPC delivery' front. After the mid-August tally of 200,000 arrived from China things seem to have gone awfully quiet. A quick search didn't find (me) news. Did I miss something?

BTW at the moment we have mid-year holiday meaning half of the school year has finished already. Even being nice and assuming all 200,000 are in the hands of P1 kids and actually used, that only brings us to 24% of all P1 kids.

[hellodolly]

It's good to see that the St. George's Society helps where seemingly the government is unable.

Anyway it's a bit quiet on the 'tabletPC delivery' front. After the mid-August tally of 200,000 arrived from China things seem to have gone awfully quiet. A quick search didn't find (me) news. Did I miss something?

BTW at the moment we have mid-year holiday meaning half of the school year has finished already. Even being nice and assuming all 200,000 are in the hands of P1 kids and actually used, that only brings us to 24% of all P1 kids.

All students were promised one I don't recall hearing in the election promises that only P1 students would receive one and only if their school has electricity and some one who knows how to use one to teach. Must have been added while I was laughing. 200,000 what % is that of the total school population?

[shaggy1969]

Personally I think that they are great for the kids.I was there at my Niece's school when they were handed out on 19 July. I don't see why so many people are being cynical about them....don't you want the children to learn?

Yes a contract was signed by the parents agreeing to pay for any breakages caused by the children.....but in my opinion Thai children know that they have to take care of them because they know that 3000 Baht is a lot of money for their parents or guardians to pay.

Shaggy

[Buchholz]

It's good to see that the St. George's Society helps where seemingly the government is unable.

Anyway it's a bit quiet on the 'tabletPC delivery' front. After the mid-August tally of 200,000 arrived from China things seem to have gone awfully quiet. A quick search didn't find (me) news. Did I miss something?

BTW at the moment we have mid-year holiday meaning half of the school year has finished already. Even being nice and assuming all 200,000 are in the hands of P1 kids and actually used, that only brings us to 24% of all P1 kids.

All students were promised one I don't recall hearing in the election promises that only P1 students would receive one and only if their school has electricity and some one who knows how to use one to teach. Must have been added while I was laughing.

200,000 what % is that of the total school population?

about 1 point 8 percent (1.8%)... and even that small number is six months late.

from the thread about not opening the boxes the tablets are in :

http://www.thaivisa....d/#entry5725726

perhaps as part of that repackaging, they could address the inaccuracy that the pledged 11 million children will not be receiving a tablet.... only about 1 in 10 will.

.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Buchholz

[GentlemanJim]

Personally I think that they are great for the kids.I was there at my Niece's school when they were handed out on 19 July. I don't see why so many people are being cynical about them....don't you want the children to learn?

Yes a contract was signed by the parents agreeing to pay for any breakages caused by the children.....but in my opinion Thai children know that they have to take care of them because they know that 3000 Baht is a lot of money for their parents or guardians to pay.

Shaggy

You don't need a computer tablet to learn.

What happens to the new 'educational policy' at the school if parents do not want the responsibility of signing a contract for damages? Does the child then 'not learn'?

[TheKrayTriplet]

Personally I think that they are great for the kids.I was there at my Niece's school when they were handed out on 19 July. I don't see why so many people are being cynical about them....don't you want the children to learn?

Yes a contract was signed by the parents agreeing to pay for any breakages caused by the children.....but in my opinion Thai children know that they have to take care of them because they know that 3000 Baht is a lot of money for their parents or guardians to pay.

Shaggy

They are being cynical because they cannot accept anything positive about a government that is not the democrat party - this is compounded by knowing that short of a coup or even more manipulation of the constitutional court they are not likely to see a democrat party form a government by normal democratic means for quite some time.

Most people would have applauded an initiative that introduced computers and their associated software to schoolchildren at a young age.Unfortunately the nattering nabobs of negativity (to misquote Spiro Agnews speechwriter) would rather see it as stick to beat the government with.

Edited October 7, 2012 by TheKrayTriplet

[whybother]

They are being cynical because they cannot accept anything positive about a government that is not the democrat party - this is compounded by knowing that short of a coup or even more manipulation of the constitutional court they are not likely to see a democrat party form a government by normal democratic means for quite some time.

Most people would have applauded an initiative that introduced computers and their associated software to schoolchildren at a young age.Unfortunately the nattering nabobs of negativity (to misquote Spiro Agnews speechwriter) would rather see it as stick to beat the government with.

There are two (main) issues.

1) Should they have started with grade 1's? What happens to the rest of primary school? They're going to be behind the younger students that get tablets.

2) The implementation. They're giving out tablets but they don't have the infrastructure for them to access the internet, in a most cases they don't have the infrastructure to be able to charge a large number of tablets, and in some cases they don't have the infrastructure to charge any of the tablets. Beyond that, some schools who do have the tablets are not able to start teaching with them because the teachers haven't been trained in how to use the tablets OR how to teach with them.

Besides that, their initial promise was for all students to get tablets, then they reduced that to all grade 1 students by the start of the school year. Now half way through the school year and only a quarter of the grade 1 students have got their tablets, and of those only some of them have actually started using them.

[thaicbr]

Personally I think that they are great for the kids.I was there at my Niece's school when they were handed out on 19 July. I don't see why so many people are being cynical about them....don't you want the children to learn?

Yes a contract was signed by the parents agreeing to pay for any breakages caused by the children.....but in my opinion Thai children know that they have to take care of them because they know that 3000 Baht is a lot of money for their parents or guardians to pay.

Shaggy

They are being cynical because they cannot accept anything positive about a government that is not the democrat party - this is compounded by knowing that short of a coup or even more manipulation of the constitutional court they are not likely to see a democrat party form a government by normal democratic means for quite some time.

Most people would have applauded an initiative that introduced computers and their associated software to schoolchildren at a young age.Unfortunately the nattering nabobs of negativity (to misquote Spiro Agnews speechwriter) would rather see it as stick to beat the government with.

Except these are NOT computers in the true sense.

Most schools already have computer labs.

The biggest question is was the money spent wisely after extensive study. NO

Have academics and child specialists stated that P1 is to young and it could cause learning problems in the future. YES

Sent from my GT-P1010 using Thaivisa Connect App

[Nickymaster]

We all know this taxpayers’ rip off was just a promise to get votes

European countries don't implement computers for kids in schools because they are not ready yet for numerous reasons also mentioned in this thread.

A developing country like Thailand is ready....

And then there are people defending it here......funny. They never read any reports on this? There are so many around. Do some research guys.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Nickymaster

[TheKrayTriplet]

They are being cynical because they cannot accept anything positive about a government that is not the democrat party - this is compounded by knowing that short of a coup or even more manipulation of the constitutional court they are not likely to see a democrat party form a government by normal democratic means for quite some time.

Most people would have applauded an initiative that introduced computers and their associated software to schoolchildren at a young age.Unfortunately the nattering nabobs of negativity (to misquote Spiro Agnews speechwriter) would rather see it as stick to beat the government with.

There are two (main) issues.

1) Should they have started with grade 1's? What happens to the rest of primary school? They're going to be behind the younger students that get tablets.

2) The implementation. They're giving out tablets but they don't have the infrastructure for them to access the internet, in a most cases they don't have the infrastructure to be able to charge a large number of tablets, and in some cases they don't have the infrastructure to charge any of the tablets. Beyond that, some schools who do have the tablets are not able to start teaching with them because the teachers haven't been trained in how to use the tablets OR how to teach with them.

Besides that, their initial promise was for all students to get tablets, then they reduced that to all grade 1 students by the start of the school year. Now half way through the school year and only a quarter of the grade 1 students have got their tablets, and of those only some of them have actually started using them.

But are students getting them? Yes. They're not meeting targets they set? So what, what does it really matter? At least they have set to do something thats not been done before.

The implementation. They're giving out tablets but they don't have the infrastructure for them to access the internet, in a most cases they don't have the infrastructure to be able to charge a large number of tablets, and in some cases they don't have the infrastructure to charge any of the tablets. Beyond that, some schools who do have the tablets are not able to start teaching with them because the teachers haven't been trained in how to use the tablets OR how to teach with them.

A couple of sentences of platitudes - Buchholz has shown as an example of a school without electricity on the borders with Myanmar, except it's a christian run one not a government school ,

and it does have electricity

and another one thats actually a Red Cross run school which is

getting a generator,

yet another non government school. Then Rubl puts his 10 bahts worth in thanking the Red Cross because the government has failed in providing a school there.

And now you with your soundbites. I'm sure there are schools out there without electricity (though I don't know where the figure of 2000 mentioned before comes from and what is that figure a percentage of?) but thats reality. You don't stop a complete programme because some schools haven't got electricity. This government has been in government just over a year and has at least 3/4 to go. Where do you think the tablet programme is going to be in 3/4 years time (cynical posters need not reply, I know what you're going to say) - perhaps it will kick off a programme of providing electricity to every school, who knows, but give it a chance.

The Democrat Party couldn't even organise a 3G auction in the time they were about.

[Nickymaster]

I have kids in public school:smalish NkhonNowhere town,3000 pupils,among Thai staff - half a dozen of foreign teachers,comp.lab,school wi-fi network,town has fm station,asphalt streets,running water everywhere.I have been in plenty of places in Thailand and I have to admit with shame - I have not seen any place without electricity.

a couple of examples:Thai school with no electricity in Sangkhlaburihttp://abroadwithrob...angklaburi.htmlThai school with no electricity in Mae Sarianghttp://www.bangkokst...on_Project.htmlBut upon further reading, the whole aspect is apparently moot.The students in those schools that don't have the infrastructure already in place, eg. electricity, won't be receiving their tablet computer in the first place. 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 tabletshttp://www.nationmul...e-30174293.htmlThe education of those students will just have to wait..

Just thought I'd have a glance at the example of a school

without electricity

link you provided bucholz.

Interesting place, it's called colloquially, "the bamboo school", for fairly obvious reasons. Seems to be run by a Christian group now but it was started by a local thai lady. Here's another picture

Wait a minute, what are those long white tube things on the roof, surely they can't be......... Anyway the school is quite resourceful for a school without electricity as they have a night school as well that teaches myanmar children who work during the day. Here's a pic.

Oh, well, anyway......

All pictures of the Bamboo School courtesy of the link bucholz provided -

http://abroadwithrob...chool-near.html

Oh and the second link to a school without electricity, The Ban Huay School has this to say in the link provided

The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community.http://www.bangkokst...on_Project.html

Can't be right all the time I suppose.

All that is missing from those state-of-the-art school buildings in Sangkhlaburi is a tablet computer for EACH kid.

"The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community"

We already have tablets and soon we will have electricity too. LOL.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Nickymaster

[Fozfromoz]

Seems to me, many here criticise the Thais for not displaying any thinking or forward thinking. Then along comes a scheme such as this, and now we just all spend time and energy in finding fault in every nook and cranny. I am surprised that someone hasn't complained about the colour of the bloody things.

For goodness sake, give the implementation time to take effect, then assess.

Europe hasn't implemented this. Since when was Europe the baseline we should model ourselves on? It's pretty much flying along as a brick and tile glider right now.

Then there are those here that would say the Earth is flat, only because someone in the current Government says its round, or more appropriately, an oblate spheroid.

[whybother]

But are students getting them? Yes. They're not meeting targets they set? So what, what does it really matter? At least they have set to do something thats not been done before.

The implementation. They're giving out tablets but they don't have the infrastructure for them to access the internet, in a most cases they don't have the infrastructure to be able to charge a large number of tablets, and in some cases they don't have the infrastructure to charge any of the tablets. Beyond that, some schools who do have the tablets are not able to start teaching with them because the teachers haven't been trained in how to use the tablets OR how to teach with them.

A couple of sentences of platitudes - Buchholz has shown as an example of a school without electricity on the borders with Myanmar, except it's a christian run one not a government school ,

and it does have electricity

and another one thats actually a Red Cross run school which is

getting a generator,

yet another non government school. Then Rubl puts his 10 bahts worth in thanking the Red Cross because the government has failed in providing a school there.

And now you with your soundbites. I'm sure there are schools out there without electricity (though I don't know where the figure of 2000 mentioned before comes from and what is that figure a percentage of?) but thats reality. You don't stop a complete programme because some schools haven't got electricity. This government has been in government just over a year and has at least 3/4 to go. Where do you think the tablet programme is going to be in 3/4 years time (cynical posters need not reply, I know what you're going to say) - perhaps it will kick off a programme of providing electricity to every school, who knows, but give it a chance.

The Democrat Party couldn't even organise a 3G auction in the time they were about.

Yep. They've given out less than a quarter of the tablets, and a lot of those tablets aren't being used yet ... but what does that really matter!! They've given out a few tablets. It doesn't matter that there are problems charging them, even in schools with electricity. It doesn't matter that a lot of the schools won't have access to WiFi. It's the idea that counts, it doesn't matter if we can't actually do it.

The government has been in power for just over a year, but what they promised is that all grade one students would have tablets by the start of the school year. They've clearly failed with that promise.

There's that "but the Democrats" key again.

The 3G "auction" is about to take place, but the reason there are only 3 "bidders" for the many available frequency slots is that the government is changing "Foreign Dominance" laws to make it even more difficult to get foreign investment into the industry. Some "auction" that will be.

[whybother]

Seems to me, many here criticise the Thais for not displaying any thinking or forward thinking. Then along comes a scheme such as this, and now we just all spend time and energy in finding fault in every nook and cranny. I am surprised that someone hasn't complained about the colour of the bloody things.

For goodness sake, give the implementation time to take effect, then assess.

Europe hasn't implemented this. Since when was Europe the baseline we should model ourselves on? It's pretty much flying along as a brick and tile glider right now.

Then there are those here that would say the Earth is flat, only because someone in the current Government says its round, or more appropriately, an oblate spheroid.

In this scheme there IS no forward thinking.

"Give everyone a tablet. We'll worry about how they can use it later."

[TheKrayTriplet]

All that is missing from those state-of-the-art school buildings in Sangkhlaburi is a tablet computer for EACH kid.

"The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community"

We already have tablets and soon we will have electricity too. LOL.

No, you have completely missed the point - Buchholz had decided he would provide examples of schools without electricity which would not get tablets because they did not have electricity.

I pointed out that these schools did indeed have electricity or would do so very soon - therefore showing that his examples were poorly thought out. Not only that but they were not even government schools in the first place. So basically he didn't provide a good argument for his case.

You seem to find it amusing that kids learn in those enviroments? Why not? All they need is shade, teachers and a will, why should they be denied a tablet.

They are no less intelligent because they learn at a school with a palm roof.

[rubl]

All that is missing from those state-of-the-art school buildings in Sangkhlaburi is a tablet computer for EACH kid.

"The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community"

We already have tablets and soon we will have electricity too. LOL.

No, you have completely missed the point - Buchholz had decided he would provide examples of schools without electricity which would not get tablets because they did not have electricity.

I pointed out that these schools did indeed have electricity or would do so very soon - therefore showing that his examples were poorly thought out. Not only that but they were not even government schools in the first place. So basically he didn't provide a good argument for his case.

You seem to find it amusing that kids learn in those enviroments? Why not? All they need is shade, teachers and a will, why should they be denied a tablet.

They are no less intelligent because they learn at a school with a palm roof.

A private organisation arranges for the village and the school to have electricity. No idea about internet access via Wi-Fi or cable.

So, 'government provides infrastructure' ?

Anyway, do you have info on how many of the tabletPCs ordered have arrived from China by now, dear John?

[OzMick]

No, you have completely missed the point - Buchholz had decided he would provide examples of schools without electricity which would not get tablets because they did not have electricity.

I pointed out that these schools did indeed have electricity or would do so very soon - therefore showing that his examples were poorly thought out. Not only that but they were not even government schools in the first place. So basically he didn't provide a good argument for his case.

You seem to find it amusing that kids learn in those enviroments? Why not? All they need is shade, teachers and a will, why should they be denied a tablet.

They are no less intelligent because they learn at a school with a palm roof.

You seem to miss the point that not only is the government not supplying electricity or WiFi, they're not even supplying a bloody school.

[GentlemanJim]

All that is missing from those state-of-the-art school buildings in Sangkhlaburi is a tablet computer for EACH kid.

"The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community"

We already have tablets and soon we will have electricity too. LOL.

No, you have completely missed the point - Buchholz had decided he would provide examples of schools without electricity which would not get tablets because they did not have electricity.

I pointed out that these schools did indeed have electricity or would do so very soon - therefore showing that his examples were poorly thought out. Not only that but they were not even government schools in the first place. So basically he didn't provide a good argument for his case.

You seem to find it amusing that kids learn in those enviroments? Why not? All they need is shade, teachers and a will, why should they be denied a tablet.

They are no less intelligent because they learn at a school with a palm roof.

No, I think you have completely missed the point. It doesn't matter a rats ar*e what phot'os Bucholz has sourced, what matters are the facts.

A Billion dollars taken out the treasury coffers to be spent on tablets for all school children. That number of school children then reduced to only P1.

The tablets, despite the money being taken, have not been delivered to any but 25% of the newly stated target audience.

No investment or preparation has taken place on behalf of the teachers, who need to understand how to get a class of 50 children all to use the tablet at the same time and benefit from actual learning.

One of the tablets most attractive features - connectivity to the internet is not possible at most schools. Where it is possible, it is in theory only, as the bandwidth limitations won't allow all the tablets to connect at the same time.

There are many schools without electricity, and when a country blows 10 billion dollars on tablets while the red cross provide generators to schools, it's pretty shameful.

The current Government did this. Nothing to do with Reds and Yellows. If the Democrats had proposed and implemented (rather, failed in their implementation) such a foolhardy, ill researched, ill studied blatantly corrupt plan that IS NOT in the remotest way in the interests of the school children, then there would be a very different attitude on Thai Visa. That is, we would ALL be slagging the Government off, as it is, the only ones doing the complaining are those you perceive to be Democrat (though you need to be aware the majority of us have no political leaning towards the Democrats - sorry to disappoint!). If it had been the Democrats, there would be no devision amongst us, as it is you and your like continue to try and justify the incompetence displayed by this Government, purely because they wear the colour that your Girlfriends or Wives say is best for Thailand. I want to say, wake up and smell the coffee, but its pointless.

lastly, you said "You seem to find it amusing that kids learn in those enviroments? Why not? All they need is shade, teachers and a will, why should they be denied a tablet"

They will be denied a tablet, because the Government responsible for implementation has already said, no electricity, no wifi, sorry your school will not qualify for an issue of tablets! The Government don't rectify the problematic barrier, they simply wash their hands of the problem.

Edited October 7, 2012 by GentlemanJim

[rubl]

No, I think you have completely missed the point. It doesn't matter a rats ar*e what phot'os Bucholz has sourced, what matters are the facts.

Ten Billion dollars taken out the treasury coffers to be spent on tablets for all school children. That number of school children then reduced to only P1.

... end removed

Begin of this year talks were about THB 1.9 or 2.2 billion. Mind you numbers have varied over time, both number of tabletPCs and budget required to buy these. Still even with a large margin I can only get upto THB 4 billion, or about US$ 133 million.

To be sure this amount is for +/- 900,000 tabletPCs only!

[OzMick]

Is this farce a one-off exercise, or are they not going to supply next years P1 as well?

[GentlemanJim]

No, I think you have completely missed the point. It doesn't matter a rats ar*e what phot'os Bucholz has sourced, what matters are the facts.

Ten Billion dollars taken out the treasury coffers to be spent on tablets for all school children. That number of school children then reduced to only P1.

... end removed

Begin of this year talks were about THB 1.9 or 2.2 billion. Mind you numbers have varied over time, both number of tabletPCs and budget required to buy these. Still even with a large margin I can only get upto THB 4 billion, or about US$ 133 million.

To be sure this amount is for +/- 900,000 tabletPCs only!

A factor of 10 failure, thank you. Remember the budget was made for all children!

[Buchholz]

All that is missing from those state-of-the-art school buildings in Sangkhlaburi is a tablet computer for EACH kid.

"The Thailand Hill Tribes Education Project is presently embarking upon a project to construct a classroom/general purpose room at the primary school in Ban Huay Plakang, Mae Sariang District, Chiang Mai Province. Since there is no electricity in the entire village, a generator will also be provided which will be shared with the whole community"

We already have tablets and soon we will have electricity too. LOL.

No, you have completely missed the point - Buchholz had decided he would provide examples of schools without electricity which would not get tablets because they did not have electricity.

What you have completely failed to comprehend was those were just thrown up examples. If they have generators now, great. If they aren't government schools, great. Perhaps they were poor selection to demonstrate the dilapidated government schools, but It doesn't somehow magically exclude all the other schools that absolutely have no electricity.

Apparently you are as naive and inexperienced with Thailand's length and breadth as the poster borovik who very revealingly posted:

among Thai staff - half a dozen of foreign teachers,comp.lab,school wi-fi network,town has fm station,asphalt streets,running water everywhere.I have been in plenty of places in Thailand and I have to admit with shame - I have not seen any place without electricity.

Come to Thailand. Travel around a bit. To find astoundingly poor schools is not difficult to do where the notion of having 21st century tablet computers is absurd, given their existing infrastructure.

.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Buchholz

[rubl]

No, I think you have completely missed the point. It doesn't matter a rats ar*e what phot'os Bucholz has sourced, what matters are the facts.

Ten Billion dollars taken out the treasury coffers to be spent on tablets for all school children. That number of school children then reduced to only P1.

... end removed

Begin of this year talks were about THB 1.9 or 2.2 billion. Mind you numbers have varied over time, both number of tabletPCs and budget required to buy these. Still even with a large margin I can only get upto THB 4 billion, or about US$ 133 million.

To be sure this amount is for +/- 900,000 tabletPCs only!

A factor of 10 failure, thank you. Remember the budget was made for all children!

The 'election only' promise was for ALL schoolkids/students, the budget discussions and allocation from earlier this year was for 800,000 - 900,000 tabletPCs only.

BTW remember this from the campaign trail?

[Buchholz]

The 'election only' promise was for ALL schoolkids/students, the budget discussions and allocation from earlier this year was for 800,000 - 900,000 tabletPCs only.

BTW remember this from the campaign trail?

From the very beginning, this scamming of the public with Yingluck's deception was hard to overlook....

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.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Buchholz

[TheKrayTriplet]

But are students getting them? Yes. They're not meeting targets they set? So what, what does it really matter? At least they have set to do something thats not been done before.

The implementation. They're giving out tablets but they don't have the infrastructure for them to access the internet, in a most cases they don't have the infrastructure to be able to charge a large number of tablets, and in some cases they don't have the infrastructure to charge any of the tablets. Beyond that, some schools who do have the tablets are not able to start teaching with them because the teachers haven't been trained in how to use the tablets OR how to teach with them.

A couple of sentences of platitudes - Buchholz has shown as an example of a school without electricity on the borders with Myanmar, except it's a christian run one not a government school ,

and it does have electricity

and another one thats actually a Red Cross run school which is

getting a generator,

yet another non government school. Then Rubl puts his 10 bahts worth in thanking the Red Cross because the government has failed in providing a school there.

And now you with your soundbites. I'm sure there are schools out there without electricity (though I don't know where the figure of 2000 mentioned before comes from and what is that figure a percentage of?) but thats reality. You don't stop a complete programme because some schools haven't got electricity. This government has been in government just over a year and has at least 3/4 to go. Where do you think the tablet programme is going to be in 3/4 years time (cynical posters need not reply, I know what you're going to say) - perhaps it will kick off a programme of providing electricity to every school, who knows, but give it a chance.

The Democrat Party couldn't even organise a 3G auction in the time they were about.

Yep. They've given out less than a quarter of the tablets, and a lot of those tablets aren't being used yet ... but what does that really matter!! They've given out a few tablets. It doesn't matter that there are problems charging them, even in schools with electricity. It doesn't matter that a lot of the schools won't have access to WiFi. It's the idea that counts, it doesn't matter if we can't actually do it.

The government has been in power for just over a year, but what they promised is that all grade one students would have tablets by the start of the school year. They've clearly failed with that promise.

There's that "but the Democrats" key again.

The 3G "auction" is about to take place, but the reason there are only 3 "bidders" for the many available frequency slots is that the government is changing "Foreign Dominance" laws to make it even more difficult to get foreign investment into the industry. Some "auction" that will be.

I seem to remember last time somebody sold telecoms to a foreign company all sorts of people were upset. Damned if you do damned if you don't.

By the way, last time I looked there was only one other party that forms the larger part of the opposition and they were the largest part of the last government as well (regardless as to how they came to be in that position). So somehow I think it's perfectly reasonable to be refer to the democrat party when posting on this forum.

Unless of course, you just want a dedicated forum where you all clap each other on the back congratulating people on their new insults, fabricated stories and general venting of hatred at the government, Thaksin, the Shinawatra family in general and of course the red shirts? Sorry to spoil your party.

[TheKrayTriplet]

No, you have completely missed the point - Buchholz had decided he would provide examples of schools without electricity which would not get tablets because they did not have electricity.

I pointed out that these schools did indeed have electricity or would do so very soon - therefore showing that his examples were poorly thought out. Not only that but they were not even government schools in the first place. So basically he didn't provide a good argument for his case.

You seem to find it amusing that kids learn in those enviroments? Why not? All they need is shade, teachers and a will, why should they be denied a tablet.

They are no less intelligent because they learn at a school with a palm roof.

You seem to miss the point that not only is the government not supplying electricity or WiFi, they're not even supplying a bloody school.

Did you miss the point that the children at the school are older than the government?

Nice try at indignation but I could point out quite a few schools on the borders that are not provided by the government.So?

You guys are great at deflecting the attention from your leader bucholz but he did a pretty poor job at providing examples of government schools without electricity which was the question at the time, just admit it, but I know thats not the party line. A bit more research next time.

[Buchholz]

"leader"

always trying to make it into something personal... absurdly funny stuff...

.

Edited October 7, 2012 by Buchholz

[GentlemanJim]

But are students getting them? Yes. They're not meeting targets they set? So what, what does it really matter? At least they have set to do something thats not been done before.

The implementation. They're giving out tablets but they don't have the infrastructure for them to access the internet, in a most cases they don't have the infrastructure to be able to charge a large number of tablets, and in some cases they don't have the infrastructure to charge any of the tablets. Beyond that, some schools who do have the tablets are not able to start teaching with them because the teachers haven't been trained in how to use the tablets OR how to teach with them.

A couple of sentences of platitudes - Buchholz has shown as an example of a school without electricity on the borders with Myanmar, except it's a christian run one not a government school ,

and it does have electricity

and another one thats actually a Red Cross run school which is

getting a generator,

yet another non government school. Then Rubl puts his 10 bahts worth in thanking the Red Cross because the government has failed in providing a school there.

And now you with your soundbites. I'm sure there are schools out there without electricity (though I don't know where the figure of 2000 mentioned before comes from and what is that figure a percentage of?) but thats reality. You don't stop a complete programme because some schools haven't got electricity. This government has been in government just over a year and has at least 3/4 to go. Where do you think the tablet programme is going to be in 3/4 years time (cynical posters need not reply, I know what you're going to say) - perhaps it will kick off a programme of providing electricity to every school, who knows, but give it a chance.

The Democrat Party couldn't even organise a 3G auction in the time they were about.

Yep. They've given out less than a quarter of the tablets, and a lot of those tablets aren't being used yet ... but what does that really matter!! They've given out a few tablets. It doesn't matter that there are problems charging them, even in schools with electricity. It doesn't matter that a lot of the schools won't have access to WiFi. It's the idea that counts, it doesn't matter if we can't actually do it.

The government has been in power for just over a year, but what they promised is that all grade one students would have tablets by the start of the school year. They've clearly failed with that promise.

There's that "but the Democrats" key again.

The 3G "auction" is about to take place, but the reason there are only 3 "bidders" for the many available frequency slots is that the government is changing "Foreign Dominance" laws to make it even more difficult to get foreign investment into the industry. Some "auction" that will be.

I seem to remember last time somebody sold telecoms to a foreign company all sorts of people were upset. Damned if you do damned if you don't.

By the way, last time I looked there was only one other party that forms the larger part of the opposition and they were the largest part of the last government as well (regardless as to how they came to be in that position). So somehow I think it's perfectly reasonable to be refer to the democrat party when posting on this forum.

Unless of course, you just want a dedicated forum where you all clap each other on the back congratulating people on their new insults, fabricated stories and general venting of hatred at the government, Thaksin, the Shinawatra family in general and of course the red shirts? Sorry to spoil your party.

How funny! So you will remember that a few weeks prior to selling the telecoms company to Singapore, Thaksin changed the law so that he did not have to pay Thailand the billions of dollars in tax revenue due from the sale of that company. So Thailand didn't benefit. Then having done that the Shiniwatras then close the Thai market down to foreign competition in telecoms. It's amazing any foreign companies actually do business with this lot.