ICT MINISTRY ORDERS 2ND LOT OF TABLETS

The Education Ministry will start delivering the first lot 50,000 tablets to six provinces from Monday once the quality check is completed.

ICT Minister Anudith Nakornthap said the 403,941 units were part of the second lot of 804,941 units to be delivered by the Chinese firm Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development. According to the contract, Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development has to deliver the 804,941 tablets in 90 days from June 26, when the ICT Ministry finished checking the first lot of 2,000 tablets and gave the company the go-ahead to start production.

As of now, 61,000 tablets have been delivered and the ICT Ministry started checking them yesterday. It will check all tablets on a lot-by-lot basis, with 500 picked for a random check. It expects to spend five days on checking each lot of 50,000 tablets. 

“Once the tablets have been checked they will be passed on to the Education Ministry for delivery,” Anudith said, adding that the first lot of 400,000 units – which the ICT Ministry had signed the contract for on May 10 – will be delivered by August 18.

“We are behind schedule in terms of delivery because we spent a lot of time thoroughly checking the first lot of 2,000 units,” Anudith said. 

ICT Ministry permanent secretary Jeerawan Boonperm said that if seven units in a lot of 50,000 did not meet international standards, the ministry will reject the entire lot.

Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development chairman Liu Jun said the company has already set up its first service centre in Bangkok with full-time technical staff of five to six people, and is in the process of appointing local partners to operate its other 29 service centres across the country.

The company is also providing 5 per cent of the Bt1.05-billion project value as a bank guarantee. 

Each tablet has a 7-inch screen with a 1GB RAM and 3600mAh battery, and runs under the Android 4.0 operating system. 

Each also has a built-in GPS for monitoring and tracking purposes, and comes with a two-year international warranty. 

“The Education Ministry is scheduled to start delivering tablets to 14 of its educational service area offices in Krabi, Kanchanaburi, Kamphaeng Phet, Kalasin, Khon Kaen and Bangkok on Monday,” said Anek Ratpiyapaporn. He is director of the Bureau of Technology for Teaching and Learning at the Office of Basic Education Commission.

Anek added that this should cover about 48 per cent of Prathom 1 (Grade 1) students in these provinces.

“Once the tablets arrive at the educational service area offices, they will instruct schools under their supervision to pick them up. And once Prathom 1 teachers get the tablets, educational supervisors, who were previously trained, will then train the teachers on the use of these tablets,” Anek said.