More or less a column: The tablet PC fiasco
It could have been so beautiful, rose scent and moonshine, but it's bumblebee again... This song line from the former radio program Pension Hommeles seems perfectly applicable to the nice election idea of government party Pheu Thai to give all Thai schoolchildren a tablet PC. But boy, boy, what a mess they make.
Last school year, the first graders got one. Too late. The Attorney General's office recently said that 30 percent of Chinese tablets have broken and the promised service points have been closed. Of course the Ministry of ICT contradicts that: no dad, it is 0,6 percent.
This year, several companies supplied the tablets. Or should I write: deliver, because the students of Prathom 1 and Mathayom 1 (this year for the first time) still have to receive them. One region will have to wait even longer, because the auction has to be redone. One guess why.
But that's not all. Last month, the State Secretary for Education proposed giving parents coupons next year so that they can buy such a thing themselves. The minister rejected the proposal the next day. This creates inequality between children of rich and poor parents. Or they sell the coupon. Yes, the minister knows his pappenheimers. You do wonder: do both ministers enter the ministry building through the same door?
And now the purchasing committee has come up with something new. She calls it with a fancy word: distribution model. The 183 education regions, each with 100 to 200 schools, are allowed to purchase and distribute them themselves on the basis of specifications provided by the Office of the Basic Education Commission. I think some people are rubbing their hands with satisfaction, because that offers unprecedented opportunities to collect bribes.
The committee will make a decision on Monday. I know for sure: the tampering continues. And that for a tablet that – if the teacher cannot fit it into the educational curriculum – is nothing more than fun to play with. Just before the last half hour of the school day. When I was still in front of the class myself, they were allowed to 'do something for themselves'.
(Used my memory and data from Bangkok Post of October 24, 2013)
Hello Dick, Strange, but there are (yet) no responses to your story about the tablets. Wouldn't readers find it important? Anyone with a little understanding of Thai could see in advance that this project would be a flop. 80% of the students at that age have no idea what to do with such a thing, not to mention the teachers. My 9-year-old daughter gives information to the teacher, but she can only do that, because she has a farang father and the teacher is open to it, we live in Chiang Mai and not somewhere in the jungle, where the English teachers do not go further than “Hello and what is your name” Count your profit. Nice project for the "grabbers"
Sorry I didn't mean to be negative, but I've been fed up with the poor education level here for years………
With fr.gr.,
Theo Thai.
@ Theo Coincidentally, 3 comments on the tablet story were among the four that failed to transfer from Disqus to the old system. See the statement from Peter.