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Feature: Chinese tablets make learning in Thai grade schools more fun
BANGKOK, Feb 01, 2013 (Xinhua via COMTEX) --
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.
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