Thai Government Halts 41 Billion Baht Education Tech Bids Over Transparency Fears

 

The Thai government has ordered the immediate suspension of two substantial procurement projects, collectively worth over 41 billion Baht, for the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI).

 

The halt comes amidst serious concerns regarding the transparency and fairness of the bidding processes.

 

Reports from Government House indicate that the decision to suspend the projects was prompted by a formal complaint lodged by the Anti-Corruption Network Foundation.

 

On 24 June 2025, the Foundation submitted a letter to Prasert Chanthararuangthong, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the government's Cloud First Policy Committee, urging intervention.

 

The Foundation specifically called for the suspension of two significant projects from the Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC), an agency under the Ministry of Education:

• A cloud rental project (6,834 VMs), valued at 2.8 billion Baht.
• A software procurement and Learning Platform Phase 2 development project, valued at 1.33 billion Baht.

 

The complaint highlighted that these projects appeared to feature "highly specific specifications," which could effectively limit competition to a single service provider.

 

Such a scenario, the Foundation argued, could lead to unfair tendering practices and and create avenues for "inflating budgets" or demanding illicit kickbacks.

 

Adding to these concerns, several other projects from MHESI are reportedly awaiting bid submission, including a higher education cloud rental project worth 5.413 billion Baht, which may exhibit similar problematic characteristics.
 

 

 

Breach of "Cloud First" Policy Allegations

A source within Government House has confirmed that these individual ministry tenders appear to contravene the government's established "Cloud First Policy."

 

This policy, overseen by a special committee chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Prasert, explicitly dictates that "government agencies must procure cloud services only through central mechanisms."

 

The rationale behind this centralisation is to prevent system duplication, reduce costs, and maintain stringent data security standards across the public sector.

 

To ensure good governance in IT spending, the Cloud First Policy Committee has appointed a dedicated subcommittee for procurement.

 

This body is tasked with supervising IT budgets and explicitly prohibits individual ministries or agencies from conducting separate tenders or procurements without approval from the central working group.

 

A Ministry of Education source confirmed that following the complaint to the Deputy Prime Minister, OBEC has been instructed to "postpone" its bidding procedures until a thorough investigation is concluded.

 

Massive Tech Investment Under Scrutiny

Budget documents released by government agencies reveal that for the fiscal year 2026, the Ministry of Education and MHESI combined had plans to spend over 20 billion Baht on various technology initiatives.

 

These include:

• Tablet + SIM rental: 14.655 billion Baht
• Cloud rental (Ministry of Education): 2.8 billion Baht
• Learning Platform Phase 2: 1.33 billion Baht
• VR–AR / Smart Lab: 432 million Baht
• Cloud rental (MHESI): 5.413 billion Baht
• Other projects: such as the NEdNet network and Synchrotron.

 

Many of these projects involve "renting cloud services alongside system development" with precisely fixed Virtual Machine (VM) sizes.

 

The Anti-Corruption Foundation has specifically noted that this approach could indicate a deliberate tailoring of specifications to favour particular contractors.

 

A source from the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES) suggests that the current government is inclined to push for future IT procurement through a centralised "IT Marketplace" platform.

 

This system would encourage competitive bidding from multiple private sector companies under a single framework, moving away from fragmented, agency-specific tenders.

 

Should the ongoing investigation uncover irregularities or a breach of the Cloud First Policy Committee's resolution, the government may opt to cancel or significantly revise the entire project structure.

 

This would likely be followed by a rapid implementation of new, strict guidelines to ensure all agencies rigorously adhere to the "Cloud First" policy moving forward.