Audit panels to check purchase

Education Minister Suchart Tadathamrongvej said yesterday that Cabinet had already approved Bt1.56 billion to purchase 558,077 tablets for Prathom 1 students and Bt1.91 billion to buy 637,751 tablets for Mathayom 1 students.
The specifications for the new batches would be better than the last. For example, internal memory would be doubled from 8 to 16 gigabytes. The budget for each new tablet is up to Bt3,000 each.
A panel chaired by PM’s adviser Olarn Chaipravat is still in charge of setting specifications for the tablets.
“The panel is working on it,” Suchart said.
The procurement for Mathayom 1 would start late this year and for Prathom 1 early next year.
E-auctions would be held and vendors, local or foreign, were welcome to bid.
“We believe the move will give a boost to Thailand’s software and hardware industry,” he said.
The use of tablets among students would help encourage active application development, he said.
The One Tablet Per Child project is one of the policies that helped Pheu Thai Party win the election. About 400,000 tablets have already been handed out to students.
Over the past four months, the ministry had found that students were using their tablets to access content via the Internet more.
“This reflects a certain level of success,” he said.
Internet usage during the first month was just 1,400 times. In the second month or July, it jumped to 14,228. In August, it skyrocketed to 107,000. Last month, it soared to 460,000.
Students who have already received free tablets for studying are expected to use them for the life of the devices.
Earlier this year, the government signed contracts with a Chinese supplier for 858,886 tablets worth Bt1.9 billion that are now being used for studying at Prathom 1 level.