China's SCOPE wins tablet PCs scheme

Thai Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister Gp. Capt. Anudith Nakornthap said on Monday his ministry finally selected SCOPE, a tablet producer from China, as the winning bidder for the government's tablet PCs for school students, local TV Spring News reported. The ministry will on Tuesday submit the decision to the cabinet meeting for approval. The minister revealed last Friday four tablet manufacturers from China that have met the Thai government's tablet PCs requirements, namely Huawei, TCL, Haier and SCOPE. The committee overseeing the purchase of tablet computers went to China on March 3-4 to examine the details of the four recommended companies. The tablet PCs specifications set by the government include a seven-inch touch screen, 16-gigabyte memory, and dual-core CPU. The tablets must also operate under the Android 3.2 Honeycomb system. The tablet policy management committee in January this year agreed to increase the distribution of tablets for primary school students in the upcoming academic year from over 600,000 units to 900,000. The committee earlier set the original budget at 1.9 billion baht (61.2 million U.S. dollars). Tablet PCs for schoolchildren is one of the populist policies that the ruling Pheu Thai Party promised with the voters during the election campaign last year. The programme has so far prompted widespread debates over suitable educational content and control of inappropriate content and misuse of the devices.