Tablet computer purchases suspended

[maxme]

@robblok

Do you know how many that actually pay tax, don't lie about their income?

There are a lot of Thais that don't even have a contract with the company they are working for. And we are not talking about the lower class here.

There are a lot of issues to be solved and while a few problems may be solved by removing Thaksin's influence in politics, it won't solve the problem at hand. The rich keep getting richer at the poor's expense and it will definitely not help Thailand grow into a developed nation nor a democracy.

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[maxme]

@kinamey

Though it came off as sarcastic, I think my question is valid.

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[nottocus]

See the Bears must be really annoyed that the junta is doing some positive moves.

[bkkgooner]

A good day for Thai education, as much as I hate the coup this is a good move.

The scheme has given no benefit to students at all and the money would be much better invested in interactive whiteboard, projectors and more teacher training.

[thumper101]

Now can we see a full investigation from the NACC into what actually went on with this policy, the movement of money and exactly the amount lost.

Let's see what Chaturon has actually been up to with this scheme, and they already have the toad banged up, I doubt he will be leaving prison for a long time.... Just nice to see ALL the corruption from the Thaksin buddies getting exposed for the whole world to see.

Edited May 30, 2014 by thumper101

[chrisinth]

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How about relocating the funds into a decent teacher training scheme that actually produces proper teachers. Thailand may then at last be able to move forward in a meaningful way with properly educated children.

Well fine. Actually the new 5 year bachelor of education degree contains more modern teaching methodology but when new teachers go out to schools they very often run into roadblocks when they attempt to use these newer methods in the class room.

Most of the roadblocks are older teachers who totally refuse to change and push school directors / headmasters to have the newer activities stopped.

In many schools, especially big schools the older teachers en masse are quite powerful and in many schools headmasters / directors are frightened of their en masse power.

Change is sorely needed, change is possible, but it won't be easy. Perhaps it will need to force the intransient older teachers to retire.

More discussion needed.

Not sure about Bkk but for up-country the above post is spot on. That is exactly what happens.

[cloudhopper]

"We have to assess whether students have benefited from this scheme," he said on his first day at the Education Ministry"

Well isn't that refreshing. Obviously a question previous "education" ministers had no intention of ever asking.

[aimbc]

IMO, they need to freeze all the assets of those involved with the program and find out how much money was siphon out of the project. And it was such a vote getting scheme. You would think they would do a small pilot first before dedicating that much to the budget and promising that many tablets and wasting valuable tax funds. I hope the government can write some sort of a law so that campaign promises such as this can no longer be made. If they can't, they need to have a certain performance measurement to make sure the project is viable, or else, they need to scrap it.

This government kept the tablet and rice policy going even though it was a failure, because they knew if they had stopped the program, voters would actually see the true purpose of the policy, an attempt to buy votes, and they would no longer have the support of the people they duped. It's called accountability and that is what Thailand needs to learn instead of let's forgive them for trying to rip us off.

[kimamey]

"We have to assess whether students have benefited from this scheme," he said on his first day at the Education Ministry"

Well isn't that refreshing. Obviously a question previous "education" ministers had no intention of ever asking.

I believe there was a statement about the positive results from the tablet introduction. The problem was that from what I remember it all sounded a bit too good and was, if I remember from a government department.

[aitch52]

An Admiral will always recognise a sinking ship when he sees one, congratulations another commonsense move from the coup. The tablets were doomed to fail from the beginning, ill conceived and no prior thought or planning. Yet another vote catcher to fool the electorate of which we have seen many. Off topic but yes the farmers do need subsidies to get away from the chemicals and fertilisers they are poisoning us with to a more organic yet productive method. Once the water table has been contaminated it takes years of dedicated clean up campaigns to restore it, can you see that happening here, and no I am not a Green looney it just drives me to despair seeing the wanton destruction of the countryside.

[Lobber]

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A positive, long overdue move but there are those who want the scheme continued ! We could speculate why and it's not to better education.

I have yet to read a positive post on these tablets from parents on this forum who have children in school but, as is is be expected, previously govt officials hailed it as a raging success.

Anyone who thinks that spending billions on sh#tty Chinese pieces of cr@p that break right out of the box, and are filed with "lite" apps, is the way to educate children, is deluded.

Ahhhh, Stradavarius you forget the 30% that is / has been siphoned off ....that's why!!

[Scott]

A large number of off-topic posts have been deleted along with replies. Just in case you didn't notice, this topic is about the Tablet computer program being suspended it is NOT about the rice pledging scheme.

Continued off-topic, troll posts and pictures of rallies will result in suspensions.

[issanaus]

"We have to assess whether students have benefited from this scheme," he said on his first day at the Education Ministry"

Well isn't that refreshing. Obviously a question previous "education" ministers had no intention of ever asking.

I believe there was a statement about the positive results from the tablet introduction. The problem was that from what I remember it all sounded a bit too good and was, if I remember from a government department.

The tablets turn out to be a bitter pill to swallow!

Kids should be taught what is useful and relevant to their lives. As far as IT&T goes they really need to study in an environment that they will encounter in further studies and in workplaces. Dumping the scheme and having class rooms that reflect the modern environment will assist the students, business and the country as a whole. The reality for the smaller schools is that may mean that zones need to be established with an IT hub that students attend 1 day a week.

It would also be beneficial if the facilities were utilised to provide vocational studies for adults and parents who wished to support their children's education.

[culicine]

IMO, they need to freeze all the assets of those involved with the program and find out how much money was siphon out of the project. And it was such a vote getting scheme. You would think they would do a small pilot first before dedicating that much to the budget and promising that many tablets and wasting valuable tax funds. I hope the government can write some sort of a law so that campaign promises such as this can no longer be made. If they can't, they need to have a certain performance measurement to make sure the project is viable, or else, they need to scrap it.

This government kept the tablet and rice policy going even though it was a failure, because they knew if they had stopped the program, voters would actually see the true purpose of the policy, an attempt to buy votes, and they would no longer have the support of the people they duped. It's called accountability and that is what Thailand needs to learn instead of let's forgive them for trying to rip us off.

...there could be good reasons why the Ed minister didn't turn himself in to the military. I hope ALL politicians and their friends have all their assets and bank transfers investigated. Time to take out the trash.

[northernjohn]

Reassuring to see progress and important progress being made by General Prayut's team in such a short time. The junta has been very effective so far and in my opinion is doing a better job than the government ever has these past 8 years. More of it please.

Yes it is a joy to watch a no nonsense man who is not pandering to the public in order to get reelected and find further ways to rob the treasury. Thailand needs more leaders like him. Hopefully some of the police chief replacements will have his attitude also.

[northernjohn]

How about relocating the funds into a decent teacher training scheme that actually produces proper teachers. Thailand may then at last be able to move forward in a meaningful way with properly educated children.

BINGO

You have hit the nail on the head. It is a little early for new policies to be looked at but that in my opinion is the very first thing they should do. Set up a policy to insure the future generation of kids a decent education which is imposable under current guidelines.

It is such a shame that they have so much corruption to clear out of the way that they can not take the time to fully reform things right away.

Hopefully the education ministry has plans along the lines of improving the teachers ability to really teach and with out a minister in charge who's only job was to please Thaksin they can go ahead with them.

[northernjohn]

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I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews....................... alt=wub.png>

These will be the last rice scheme payments the farmers will get. From now on they are on their own again.

I doubt that.

And considering the sorry state the rice market is in due to Thaksin's "policies" there's a good chance we could see Abhisit's rice subsidy plan in force soon.

Where is the money for the subsidy going to come from, certainly not the Thai tax payer, cant subsidise one industry that's unprofitable and not others. Small Thai rice growers days are numbered time moves on and they have been over taken by Vietnam and India along with loosing some good contracts due to continued use of pesticides. Why has Thaskins policies effected the price of rice?

That question doesn't even dignify an answer.

Sore losers are getting desperate.

[Scott]

More off-topic posts have been deleted. This topic is about the tablet program. It's not about the rice scheme.

Continued trolling will earn posters suspensions.

[mickeylo]

I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews.......................

why the f does anything in thailand has to be called a scheme in just sounds so shady,rice scheme, tablet, scheme why dont they use the word program at least it does,it sound like someone trying to steal something.

[mickeylo]

I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews.......................

[northernjohn]

I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews....................... alt=wub.png>

I doubt that.

And considering the sorry state the rice market is in due to Thaksin's "policies" there's a good chance we could see Abhisit's rice subsidy plan in force soon.

And I doubt that will ever happen. He and his ilk have had plenty of time to implement that when they were in power. But one can hope that the parties will now start kissing the asses of the voters. However this is Thailand we are talking about.

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The problem of kissing asses of voters is that someone has to pay for it all. Raising the VAT wont make the poor happy. The middlle incomes wont like to pay more income tax (and they should not). Money does not appear from thin air, someone needs to pay. A property tax might be it. But still not that much money will come from that.

That is the problem with populist policies.. they ruin the market and a country. The farmers are now worse of as before the rice scam. All is on the head of Taksin.

Defiantly not an economist have no idea of what the long range affect of a property tax would be. But it seems to me that if one was in place property owners would be more willing to sell their property that sits with vacant buildings on it. There by increasing the looks of the neighborhoods and reducing the use of land needed to build new buildings on that don't always get built just part way adding to the eye soreness of the area.

Plus more money in the coffers and more money they could spend on training and paying proper building inspectors.

Edit

Just realized it would further reduce the need to pave the land that water now runs off of to property that will hold water adding a bit to the efforts to fight floods. Maybe not a big thing but a part of the solution.

Edited May 30, 2014 by northernjohn

[Nickymaster]

Things start to make much more sense if decision are not made with a second agenda in mind.

[DrTuner]

The sound of reason. I hope the Army is clever enough to put a technocrat government in place to implement true reforms. Politicians would do better to stand by while work actually gets done.

[billd766]

I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews.......................

I suspect that while the Army under General Pracha didn't seem to do much, what they seem to have done a lot of is observing, thinking how things could have been done better and a whole lot of forward planning.

[Basil B]

From what I understand these tablets keep breaking down, typical "China Export" quality.

I assume they come with the cheap IPad copy (self igniting and electrocuting) power supplies.

Another intelligent move by the new administration, not to say children do not need access to computers or tablets but why not look at something like the "Raspberry PI" very in expensive and educational.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

[billd766]

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I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews....................... alt=wub.png>

These will be the last rice scheme payments the farmers will get. From now on they are on their own again.

I do wish I had your knowledge and high ranking contacts to know all what is going to happen in advance.

My thoughts are that the farmers will get help, certainly this year but it will be structured totally differently to the PTP rice scam. Perhaps it will be something like the Democrat scheme as put up by Abhisit.

AFAIK the price of land rents has not gone down, neither has fertiliser or any of the other essentials necessary for rice rarming which menas that the rice farmers may be able to break even IF they are lucky, so some form of assisstance MUST be given at leasty in the current year. Hopefully ALL the farmers will be able to benefit and an upper limit ofhow much "subsidised" rice will be accepted.

With a bigger bit of luck the rice farmers can learn new and more efficient ways of gowing rice.

[billd766]

I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews....................... alt=wub.png>

These will be the last rice scheme payments the farmers will get. From now on they are on their own again.

I doubt that.

And considering the sorry state the rice market is in due to Thaksin's "policies" there's a good chance we could see Abhisit's rice subsidy plan in force soon.

And I doubt that will ever happen. He and his ilk have had plenty of time to implement that when they were in power. But one can hope that the parties will now start kissing the asses of the voters. However this is Thailand we are talking about.

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

Actually they DID implement it onlt for the PTP and their rice scam to come along and the Democrat version was scrapped as "too costly".

The PTP will guarantee everybody in Thailand will be rich in 6 months. Thaksin thinks and Puea Thai does.

A PTP election slogan that doesn't quite ring true 3 years later.

[DrTuner]

I suspect that while the Army under General Pracha didn't seem to do much, what they seem to have done a lot of is observing, thinking how things could have been done better and a whole lot of forward planning.

Planning forward .. makes this even more exceptional. I hope they don't run out of steam with this pace.

[bigbamboo]

I am starting to like this junta more and more. .Rice payments to poor farmers, reforming the police, canceling these tablet schemes, infrastructure reviews.......................

I think a lot of Thais are beginning to feel the same way.

[scorecard]

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How about relocating the funds into a decent teacher training scheme that actually produces proper teachers. Thailand may then at last be able to move forward in a meaningful way with properly educated children.

Well fine. Actually the new 5 year bachelor of education degree contains more modern teaching methodology but when new teachers go out to schools they very often run into roadblocks when they attempt to use these newer methods in the class room.

Most of the roadblocks are older teachers who totally refuse to change and push school directors / headmasters to have the newer activities stopped.

In many schools, especially big schools the older teachers en masse are quite powerful and in many schools headmasters / directors are frightened of their en masse power.

Change is sorely needed, change is possible, but it won't be easy. Perhaps it will need to force the intransient older teachers to retire.

More discussion needed.

Not sure about Bkk but for up-country the above post is spot on. That is exactly what happens.

Point taken. I have close family members graduated fairly recently, work in Bkk schools, most of my awareness of this subject comes from what they have shared and they have mentioned this happens in both Bkk schools and upcountry schools.