Chinese tablets make learning in Thai schools more fun

For nine-year-old Dejdanai Meakunsud, learning basic education in the primary level is now more fun and interesting after he started using Chinese-made tablets.

Every day at Rajvinit School, one of Bangkok's most famous primary public schools, Dejdanai and his Grade-4 classmates were allowed for two periods, each lasting 50 minutes, to use their tablets to study varied subjects, do lessons and play math games.

With the Chinese tablets, pupils become more attentive although probably they would have wished for more time to use the computer.

A wifi system has been installed in the school's classrooms but only the teachers have the passwords in the computers. The children are not allowed to use the tablets without the permission of the teachers.

"It's fun to study and learn our lessons from the tablets, including math using games in our exercises. I always look forward to the periods during which the teacher allows me to use my tablet, which I keep under my desk," said a schoolboy.

With the help from the tablets, what was normally called " homework" could be quickly done in the classroom, said Jantarak Jongthammajinda, another Rajvinit School pupil.

Jantarak said she prefers using the tablet to learn her lessons and doing her homework rather than conventional notebooks. "I feel more fun while learning and there are no hassles," she added.

Vasana Somwan, the teacher in charge of the computer-aided studies at Rajvinit School, said several educational subjects were preloaded into the Android 4.0, 1-GHz CPU, 512-MB-RAM, 8-GB- storage tablet computer for the primary students, including the Thai and English languages, social studies, math and science.

However, Ms. Somwan said, the pupils are not allowed to use their tablets outside of the classrooms since they might use them for games instead of studying their lessons.

Last year, Rajvinit School was picked as Bangkok's pilot school where the Thai government's one-tablet- per-child program was implemented on experimental basis.

Besides the Grade 4 pupils, an estimated 600 students in Grade- 1 classes were also given Chinese tablets.

Supatra Sangthong, the director of Wat Rad Bhothong School in Samut Prakarn province, said all the Grade 1 pupils in her public school are now using the seven-inch touch-screen tablets provided by China's Shenzhen Scope Scientific Development.

Thailand's Ministry of Information & Communication Technology said most of the 900,000 tablets, produced by Shenzhen Scope, had already been given to Grade 1 pupils throughout the country since last year and the rest to Grade 4 students at selected schools.

Only 0.17 percent of these Chinese tablets, which cost 81 U.S. dollars each, had been reported as having some technical problems that include lack of access to the Internet or could not be recharged.

The MICT said that the government plans to provide all secondary students in all public schools throughout the country. The one-tablet-per-child program was one of the campaign promises of the Puea Thai (For Thais) Party which scored a landslide victory in the 2011 nationwide election.