Thai Govt Signs $32.8 Million Deal for Educational Android Tablets

This is not the first time we are hearing about how tablets are increasingly being used in the field of education. The Thai government has put pen to paper to seal a deal for what has been touted as being the widest tablet deployment to date. The government has agreed to purchase a staggering 400,000 tablets from Shenzen Scope at a unit price of $81 which brings the grand total up to $32.8 million.

Unlike the $35 low-end Aakash tablets that were purchased by the Indian government for its students, the Thai government has made a pricier purchase to ensuring that the hardware and software is sufficient and can be used effectively to further the students’ education. The $81 Scopad SP0712 will ship with a 7-inch screen, 1GB of RAM, GPS, 8GB of storage and it will running Android’s latest operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich.

In addition to all the hullaballoo, it is reported that the Thai government might be interested in buying another 530,000 tablets of the same Chinese manufacturer which would notch the total up to $75.7 million. Given the initial deal, Shenzen Scope is confident that it will trigger other governments to follow suit and purchase the affordable tablets for use in their educational institutes as well.

Liu Jun who is the Chairman of Shenzen Scope said, “Thailand is the first country in which we have provided large numbers of tablets for students. Now we are talking other governments to provide this kind of tablet device for (other) students, including Pakistan, Brazil and South Africa.”

Pradeep Chandrasekaran
Categories: Tablets
Tags: Education