Prathom 2 tablets ready next month

Prathom 2 tablets ready next month

Content for Prathom 2 (Grade 2) students will be installed on their tablet computers by next month, the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) said yesterday.

The new school year started earlier this month, and teachers say the students cannot use their tablets until the new content is installed.

Obec secretary-general Chinnapat Bhumirat said 349 lessons in six core subjects have been developed and are ready to be installed. Under the government's One Tablet PC Per Child policy, tablet computers were distributed to all 800,000 Prathom 1 students last year.

Those students have now moved on to the second grade, and have taken the computers with them.

However, new content needs to be installed to match the Prathom 2 syllabus.

Mr Chinnapat said teachers can download the content on to school computers first, or download it directly to the tablets.

"The five gigabytes of content from Prathom 1 must be deleted before the 3GB of Prathom 2 content is installed," Mr Chinnapat said.

Staff from all primary educational service area offices nationwide had been trained in how to delete and install content.

These staff members will visit schools to instruct teachers how to install the content, which should be completed by next month, he said.

Bundit Patyen, director of Phayathai School, said students who have moved to Prathom 2 have been unable to use the tablets while they wait for the new content.

He said the school was earlier told Prathom 2 content could be downloaded directly from Obec's Bureau of Technology for Teaching and Learning. The school is now discussing ways to install the content on to tablets of its 240 Prathom 2 students.

Since the tablets were distributed to Phayathai School students, about 10 had broken, Mr Bundit added.

Meanwhile, the terms of reference for the purchase of 1.6 million tablet computers for new Prathom 1 and Mathayom 1 (Grade 7) students will be changed slightly based on a recent public hearing, Mr Chinnapat said. He expected students would receive the tablets by the end of the first semester.

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