Thailand’s new education policy will provide a free tablet PC to every
Thailand’s new education policy will provide a free tablet PC to every Grade 1 child in the kingdom.
Under a pilot program, the Ministry of Education gave tablets to 600 students in different schools.
In theory, it makes sense to give young students an equal opportunity to keep up with changing technologies.
Tablets can serve as English teachers for schools who cannot afford to staff native speakers.
However, the initial handout of tablet PCs went to five prestigious urban schools, leaving rural Thai students in the dust.
Amnuay Sunthornchot, head of the Values for Building the Nation Chat Club, said: “Lack of proper curriculum is the most serious issue in national education. These days, Thai students are not studying what they are going to use in real life. So the 1.6 billion baht education budget should be spent on curriculum development.”
The hope is for tablet computers to narrow the gap between privileged children and those less fortunate in what many politicians consider a failed education system.
A study on the pilot’s impact found that 75 per cent of the time students used tablets for playing games, whereas 25 per cent of the time was spent learning.